


An Alternate Phantom

by perseajackson



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-07-21 15:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7393687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perseajackson/pseuds/perseajackson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A misreading of the infamap leads Danny into a strange portal to Amity Park. Nothing seems wrong until a new half-ghost appears, along with a new enemy. Who is this girl, and why does everything she say go against what Danny knows is real? He will have to help her with her own problems to get back to his own, normal reality. But what will change with this girl, and what will change with Danny, during their efforts to get Danny back home?</p><p>Primarily Danny POV, with a new "main character" OC. Takes place after Phantom Planet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. So... That's Three Phantoms Now..?

Danny soared through the ghost zone. "I think that's about enough for today," he said, slowing down and turning to face the specter speeder that was following him. Sam and Tucker sat within, speaking up through the Fenton phones.

"Sounds good to me," Tucker said, pressing a few buttons on the dashboard. "It's almost dinner time, and we're having steak tonight!"

Sam scoffed and finished a sketch on their ever-growing map of the ghost zone. "Gross. But we got several new places mapped today, so I would say this has been a successful trip." Her eyes met Danny's, and he felt a gentle blush creep to his cheeks. Even though they were officially dating now for almost a month, he had to keep reminding himself sometimes, and he got all warm inside all over again. 

A few moments passed before they looked away from each other. Danny pulled out the infamap from his backpack. "Looks like we are pretty far from the ghost portal, but one should be popping up... hmm." He looked closer to the map. The approaching portal looked different somehow, but it was labeled "Amity Park". He figured worst case scenario would be that it took them to a town with the same name somewhere else in the United States, but he still had a weird feeling.

"What is it, dude?" Tucker asked. "Is there a portal opening nearby or what?" Sam elbowed him in the arm. "Sorry! My stomach is just getting impatient!"

"Do you ever actually speak from your brain, or is it always your stomach talking?"

"C’mon you guys, there's a portal opening up over here. It looks a little different on the map, but it's probably just somewhere different in town," Danny said. He watched the portal to Amity Park open not too far from them, put the map back in his bag, and flew towards it. He heard the speeder follow suit. 

He flew through the portal and sure enough, they were in Amity Park, just above the Nasty Burger. The specter speeder flew through just before the portal closed. 

"Home sweet home," Danny said, putting his hands on his hips and grinning. "Now let's get the specter speeder back to my house so that-"

Danny's words were cut off when a loud crash pierced the air. He turned around to face the direction the noise had come from, and he saw the dumpster behind the Nasty Burger had been turned over. Just before he could vocalize his confusion, he gasped, his ghost sense answering some of the questions that were forming in his head.

A girl with purple hair wearing a blue and black jumpsuit tumbled out from the now opened lid of the overturned dumpster. He watched her stand up, quickly brushing the trash off her person, before jumping into the air and flying off in the opposite direction of Danny. 

"Was that a ghost?" Tucker asked, peering out the windshield towards the direction the girl flew off in.

"Yeah." Danny sighed. "Guess we've got one more job before we're done tonight." He flew off after the girl, flying as fast as he could to catch up with her. He thought he'd lost her until his ghost sense went off again, and he found her floating, fumbling with something in her hands, in an alleyway. He joined her in the alley, preparing for a fight as he spoke. "Uh, hey, excuse me!"

"Ahh!!" The girl jumped and shot a ghost ray from her free hand as she spun to face Danny. 

She missed, but Danny held up his hands offensively, letting them glow green as they charged up for an ecto blast. He was going to begin interrogating her and thinking of witty puns until he saw fear in her eyes. "Hey, uh, sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," he told her, lowering his hands into a defensive position. "Are you alright?" She stared at him cautiously, opening her mouth once to speak, but closing it, deciding against it. "Okay, let's start over." Danny released the charge up of his ecto blast and let his hands fall quietly to his sides. "Hi there," he said casually. He then mentally punched himself, figuring he was starting to sound lame.

"Uh... hello," she said, raising an eyebrow at him. It appeared that she was assessing him as much as he was for her. "Who are you?" she asked him suspiciously. 

"I'm Danny Phantom," he said, raising his hand to his chest. "Who are you?"

She looked slightly surprised at his answer. It was clear she had no idea who he was, which surprised him. Nearly every ghost in the ghost zone hated him, and after the whole intangible Earth stunt a month ago, he didn't know how any ghost didn't know who he was. "Oh," she finally said. "My name's Kit Pha-"

Before she could finish, an ecto blast shot from behind Danny and right into the girl. She screamed and flew back, slamming right into the back building of the alley and dropping whatever she was holding. Danny's ghost sense went off just as he heard a feminine laugh from behind him. He turned to see a girl with ghostly blue coloured hair, red eyes, and a long white-with-red-lining cape floating up behind him. 

She looked right past him, paying him absolutely no attention, and quickly flew down, catching the object Kit dropped before swooping up to the purple haired girl who was just starting to pull herself off the cracked brick wall. 

The red eyed girl grabbed Kit by the front of her collar and held her up high. "Nice effort darling, but did you really think you could keep this away from me?" she taunted, followed with a loud and evil laugh. She shocked Kit with what Danny recognized as some kind of plasma attack, letting Kit scream for a good few seconds before dropping the girl and letting her fall down onto the concrete ground below. The red eyed ghost then thrust out a hand and spun once, her cape enveloping her and making her disappear.

It was then Danny realized that he had been metaphorically paralyzed floating in space, mesmerized by whatever exactly had just gone down in front of him. He then heard Kit crash into the ground and nearly jumped out of his jumpsuit; he shot down to the ground and knelt down at her unconscious and pretty beat up body. He also realized he had been ignoring Sam and Tucker's voices in his Fenton Phones.

"...dude!! Where did you go?!" Tucker's voice called out in his ears.

"Sorry, sorry!" Danny quickly said, apologizing and looking up. "I just witnessed something very strange. Did you guys lose me?"

"Yeah, you took some sharp turns and we have been trying to follow the sounds of destruction but have no idea where you are," Sam told him. "What did you just see?"

"I'll explain when you get here. I'll fire a ghost ray into the sky, so just follow it like a beacon, and guys, hurry." Danny raised his hand and did as he said, shooting a bright green blast into the dusk.

He turned back to the girl, Kit, and she groaned, opening her eyes a little. She met his eyes briefly before going back under. He was about to get up to greet the arriving specter speeder, but a ring of light energy appeared around her midriff and separated into two, spreading across the top and bottom halves of her body respectively. As the familiar light passed over her body, her clothes changed into a simple baseball t-shirt, Jean shorts, regular sneakers, and her hair turned to a dark sandy colour. Danny gasped as she finished changing into a human, and spun around, hearing Sam and Tucker gasp through their Fenton Phones. They sat above the alley with their hands and faces pressed against the glass, definitely having just seen exactly what he had seen.

"Guys, we need to take her with us back to my place," Danny said urgently. He leaned down and gingerly picked the girl up, being careful of several visible wounds on her arms and torso. 

"Are you sure? We also saw a scary looking ghost with a cape earlier," Tucker said.

Danny didn't respond, he just flew the girl up to the speeder, making them both intangible and phasing them inside. He held her as Tucker turned the speeder around and began flying to Danny's house. 

"She's a half ghost too, I can't just leave her out here," Danny said, readjusting his hold on her. "Besides, she didn't know who I was, which is really strange. After all, I thought every ghost knew who I was, especially since most of them hate me. Danny Phantom isn't really a secret to anyone anymore after the meteor thing."

"I guess that's true," Sam said, turning in her seat to look at him. "We just need to be careful in case she is the evil one or something."

"I doubt that, but you're right anyway." Danny looked at the girl's relaxed features now that she was unconscious. A few strands of her thick hair were strewn across her forehead. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her lips were parted slightly.

"Uh, Danny?" Danny looked up and saw that they were approaching his house, but there was an unfortunate guest in the front yard. He saw his parents talking to Vlad Masters, his dad being as animated as ever, and his mom subtly showing her disgust. 

"I got it," he said, irritation clear in his tone. He set Kit down carefully and placed his hands on the floor, making the speeder and all four of them invisible. Tucker flew the speeder over the house and into the secret entrance in the backyard. Danny removed his hands and picked the unconscious girl up again as they flew into the basement and Tucker parked the speeder. 

Danny stepped out of the speeder and was about to say something to his friends when the girl in his arms made a soft, strained groan. He looked down just as she slowly opened her eyes. They held eye contact for a few awkward seconds before her eyes quickly widened and she let out a startled yelp. She jolted in his arms, went intangible, and fell through his arms, appearing just in time to hit the ground with an "oof!"

"Are-Are you okay??" he asked, taking a step back as she scrambled up.

"You- You didn't just see that, did you?" she asked, her voice full of anxiety.

"I did," Danny said. "But it's okay-"

"I can explain, okay, just don't- don't-"

Danny held up his hands to stop her. "Relax, relax. Your secret is safe with me."

She squinted her eyes a little, suspiciously. "I- Wait, really?"

"Yeah, I mean after all," he said, placing his hands on his hips. He then willed his human DNA to take over, the energy rings appearing and changing him back to a human. "I'm a half ghost too."

The girl stood there staring at him with her mouth open. She looked him over twice. "You- How- What??" she stammered. "You're a half ghost??"

"That's what he said," Sam pitched in, she and Tucker coming over to them. 

Kit flinched and looked over at them. She then returned her gaze to Danny. "I'm not like you. I'm not a half ghost," she said, laughing nervously. "I don't know what you guys think you saw-"

"I watched you change back to human, check out your clothes," Danny said, crossing his arms. He knew how she was feeling, and he was trying to think of how he could make sure she knew she was safe with them. She looked down and an expression of defeat came over her expression. "Your secret is safe with us, I promise."

She looked at each of them, and then settled on looking at Danny. "Does anyone know you're half ghost?" she asked him. 

Danny exchanged looks with his friends before turning back to her. "The whole ghost zone knows, and all of Amity Park knows too."

Kit gave him a confused look. "I've never heard of you before. You said you're... Danny Phantom?"

Danny nodded. "And you're Kit something."

"Actually, my name is Kitty Phantom, Kit for short. At least that's my ghost name, anyway." She crossed her arms and looked like she was assessing him again. "I've never met anyone with the same, uh, last name as me before. I mean, I've never met another half ghost before either, but I think that's a little more uncommon."

Danny raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Kit Phantom, I've never heard of you either." He tried to lay everything out in his head. Something weird was going on. 

"Hold up," Sam spoke up. "You said your name's Kit?" The other girl nodded. "I thought you looked familiar- you go to Casper High with us, don't you? We have math together, you sit in the front corner by the windows."

Kit cooked her head to the side a little. "Yeah, I do," she said, sounding suspicious again. "You're Sam Manson right?"

"Are you telling me there has been two half ghosts in our school this whole time?!" Tucker said, putting his hands in the air. "How did we not know this??"

Kit turned back to Danny. "Danny Phantom..." She looked him over again. "Phantom. Fenton. You're Danny Fenton, the ghost fighters' kid. No wonder I didn't recognize you, you rarely wear those casual clothes anymore," she said, sounding like she was mostly talking to herself. She then straightened her posture. "Hey, wait! If you're a half ghost, how have your parents not found out? Why do you fight the good ghosts if you're one of us? I mean, unless you're a bad guy, but... you seem to not be bad right now."

"What are you talking about?" Danny asked, thoroughly confused now. "I mean, yes, I'm Danny Fenton, and my parents are ghost fighters, but I always wear these clothes," he said, gesturing to his tshirt and jeans. "And I never fight good ghosts, not that there are many. I'm a good guy, I literally just saved the world, like, a month ago!"

"You what?" Kit asked. "Saved the world? From what?"

"That meteor! It was all over the news across the entire world!" Tucker said. "Even if you live under a rock, you would've heard about it!"

"I don't-"

"Danny, is that you down there?" Jack Fenton's voice called from the staircase that connected the basement and the house. The four kids could hear his footsteps coming closer to them. 

Danny looked at the other three of them. "You need to hide!" he said to Kit. She nodded quickly and went invisible. He hoped she had enough sense to move somewhere else while still invisible. 

Jack walked into the room and Danny smiled. "Hey dad, what's up?" he asked.

"We're about to start our family meeting! What are you doing down here?" his father asked, grinning at him.

"Family meeting?" Danny asked. "About what?"

"About our ghost target this week, of course!" Jack said excitedly. "What else would we have a family meeting about?"

"Uh," was all Danny could say. He had no idea what his dad was talking about. The only "family meetings" the Fentons ever had was when ghosts got him in trouble at school and his parents grounded him or something. 

"Are you feeling alright son?" Jack asked him.

"Yeah, uh, I've just had kind of a weird day," Danny told him.

"You'll feel better after some family ghost hunting time!" Jack put his arm around his son's shoulders. "Sam, Tucker, you'll have to catch up with Danny tomorrow at school. It's Fenton Family time!"

"Right, Fenton family time," Sam said. "We will just show ourselves out. See you tomorrow, Danny." She grabbed Tucker by the arm and began walking them both out. She gave Danny a kiss on the cheek as they passed by, and he smiled, waving at her as they left.

"Hoho, Danny! Making some leeway with Sam there, eh?" Jack exclaimed, shaking Danny a bit. "A few more steps and maybe you'll finally ask her on a date!" 

Danny looked quizzically at his dad. His family knew about him and Sam dating- what was his dad talking about..?

Before he could say anything, some boxes across the room fell, making a loud crash. Jack swiftly moved in front of Danny and whipped out one of the ghost weapons he kept on his belt. "Is there a ghost in here?!" he shouted.

"No! No, uh, no ghost here!" Danny said quickly, moving in front of his dad. "I was just cleaning up a little while ago, and I must have stacked a box wrong or something. Go upstairs, I'll be up for our family meeting or whatever soon!" He ushered his dad to the staircase, waiting until Jack got all the way upstairs before hurrying over to the overturned boxes.

"Kit!" he whispered. "Where are you?"

"You brought me to your /house/?!" she asked him. Her voice was much closer than he expected, and he jumped, turning to see her floating right behind him.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Where else was I going to take some random half ghost who was unconscious??"

"Anywhere other than the biggest ghost hunting headquarters in, like, the region??" 

"You're talking about the same Fenton family I am, right? My clumsy and embarrassing parents and my brainiac sister who refuses to have anything to do with ghost hunting?" he asked, crossing his arms. "And why are you floating?"

Kit looked down and gasped. "Dangit!" she said, and landed back on her feet. "And I don't know what you're talking about, man. You and your family are pretty good hunters."

"Danny, come on! We're waiting!" Danny's mom called. 

"You should go. I don't want to meet any more of your dad's plasma guns," she said.

"Okay, fine, but we need to talk more. I'll talk to you at school tomorrow, okay?" he said.

Kit gave him a funny look. "Um, if you say so," she said, hurrying over to a wall. She went invisible, and shortly after, he heard a thump against the wall followed by a groan. "Intangible, invisible, there's a difference, Kit!!" she muttered. 

He assumed she left then, because the room was quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a fun fact: chapter title is like because danny phantom, dani phantom, and now kit phantom. because i'm shamefully unoriginal and also original at the same time hahA (theres a reason for everything i swear)


	2. Toto, I've a Feeling We're in the Wrong Amity Park...

Danny hurried upstairs and found his parents and Jazz sitting at the kitchen table. He immediately knew something was wrong. Jazz and his mom were discussing plans for a new ghost weapons. That was the first weird thing since Jazz hardly wanted to touch ghost weapons, much less design them. The next weird thing was their family portrait on the wall. All of them were wearing jumpsuits and were posed with a ghost fighting weapon. Danny saw himself in his old jumpsuit, the one he wore the day of the accident that gave him his powers. He had nearly forgotten that it used to be white with black gloves and boots.

"There you are, Danny!" Maddie said, looking up from the blueprint laid out between her and Jazz. "What were you doing down there?"

"No matter! Let's get to business!" Jack interjected, pulling Danny to sit at the table. "I can't wait for us to hunt down our ghost of the week! I've got a picture right here!" Jack pulled out a photo and slapped it on the table. "We are gonna finally track down this ghost kid and take her down!"

Danny looked at the picture and his jaw dropped open. The picture was none other than Kit Phantom, taken of her flying through the sky near Casper High.

"Finally! I can't wait to get revenge on her for breaking my bazooka!" Jazz said excitedly.

"Wait, wait, why are we going after her specifically?" Danny cut in.

Everyone looked at him. "Because she's a ghost, and there haven't been any other ghost sightings since we caught that wolf ghost last Tuesday," Jazz said.

"But what if she's a good ghost?" Danny said. 

Everyone laughed at him. Danny frowned, beginning to get nervous. Things were... wrong. "There are no good or bad ghosts, Danny," his mom said. "Ghosts are ghosts, and when they trespass in our world, we hunt them down and send them back."

He couldn't let them hunt Kit, but he didn't know what to do. "I-I'm not feeling too well," he said, lifting a hand to his head. "I'm going to bed early."

"But we just started our Fenton family meeting," Jack protested. 

"He's a growing teen, dad!" Jazz said. "And he looks terrible- let him go to bed."

"Uh, thanks," Danny said to his sister. At least her annoying older sister habits were still normal. He left the kitchen and hurried up to his bedroom. Once he shut and locked his door, he almost screamed when he looked around. All of his space and astronaut posters and knick knacks had been replaced with ghost posters and ghost fighting weapons. "My posters," he muttered to himself. "Where's all my stuff??"

He rummaged around his room, finding that all of his astronaut books and space simulator games were gone, all replaced with comparable things that were ghost themed. Inside his closet were mostly ghost fighting jumpsuits, he only had a few t-shirts and jeans, and they smelled like closet which was not a good sign. 

Danny was in panic mode now- what happened? What had gone wrong? 

He turned intangible and flew down through the house back to the basement. He flew over to the Fenton portal on the wall and landed in front of it. Maybe if he went back into the ghost zone and used the infamap, he could find out what had gone wrong when they entered the portal to Amity Park. That was the only thing he could think of that could be responsible for what was going on. He pressed the button to open the portal, but nothing happened.

"What the..?" He looked at the button and saw words engraved just above the button, 'FAKE BUTTON, DOES NOT OPEN PORTAL'.

Why was there a fake button? He saw the control panel used to empty ghosts from the Fenton thermos back into the ghost zone, and the thermos was sitting nearby so it was clearly used. But the portal..?

He heard his parents' voices coming downstairs, talking excitedly about ghosts, and he quickly flew back up to his room. He would have to figure out what was going on tomorrow, talk it out with Tucker and Sam. Not to mention, he had to warn Kit that his family was about to start hunting her. He pulled on his pajamas (which thankfully were not ghost themed) and went to bed, laying there for at least an hour before nodding off.

-

The next morning, Danny woke up to Jazz busting in his room at a ripe 5am. "What are you still doing in bed, sleepyhead?!" she asked.

He was startled awake, and when he opened his eyes and rubbed the sleep out of them so he could see his sister, he was surprised to find her, again, in her ghost fighting jumpsuit which looked pretty similar to their mother's. 

"Jazz what are you talking about?? Get out of my room! It's like five in the morning!" he said loudly.

"Yeah, duh! We're getting ready to do our patrol of town for ghosts!" Jazz said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Since when have we done that?" Danny demanded. "And since when have you cared about fighting ghosts??"

Jazz came in, despite his followed protests, and felt his forehead for a fever. "Are you alright, Danny? You've been acting weird; did you hit your head or something? There's not a ghost possessing you, is there?" She pulled out a ghost detection device and pointed it at him, but Danny slapped it away from her before she turned it on. It landed by his feet with a dull thud.

"I'm fine, there's no ghost in me!" he said quickly. The last thing he needed was his family trying to beat the ghost out of him. "I'm just, uhh..." He tried to think of excuses that would get her to lay off, but even a weird Jazz like this one wouldn't be fooled by most. "I'm just going through.. puberty!!" 

Jazz sighed and put her hands on her hips. "I should have expected as much." She picked up her detecting device. "You just deal with whatever phase you're going through then, Danny. I'll see you at school later," she said and promptly left his room.

Danny managed to fall back asleep for another hour and a half, waking up again for good almost hour before he needed to. He sighed and began getting ready for school. He opted for the clothes he was wearing yesterday instead of one of the embarrassing jumpsuits or closet stench clothes. He checked his backpack, which was properly hung on a hook on his bedroom door (another weird thing since he usually like tossed it on the ground near his desk), and found only one ghost hunting device in there with the rest of his normal stuff. He chucked the wristband ecto gun across the room and carried his backpack and sneakers downstairs for breakfast. 

The house was silent, meaning his family was still out patrolling for ghosts or whatever. He made himself some breakfast and turned on some cartoons to keep him company. 

It was approaching 7:30am when his cell phone rang, and he fished it out of his backpack. Sam's caller ID came up, and he answered. "Hey Sam, what's up?" he greeted casually. 

"Oh, you know, just wondering why your family just drove by my house in the RV announcing over their PA system that the town is currently ghost free?" she said. He could picture her crossing her arms as she spoke. 

Danny sighed. "Sam something is wrong. I think something happened when we came back from the ghost zone," he told her. "My family thinks I love ghost hunting with them, and Jazz is all about it! She woke me up at five this morning to go on our "morning ghost patrol", like of the whole town! And I came into my room and all my astronaut posters and stuff have been replaced with ghost fighting crap!"

"Are you serious?" Sam asked, concern in her voice. "Everything is pretty normal at my place, and I haven't heard about anything weird from Tucker."

"It feels like I'm with some alternate version of my family. Most of my closet consists of my old jumpsuit, the one I wore into the ghost portal, except apparently I wear it almost every day??" He shuddered at the thought of actually wearing that to school seriously. 

"Maybe Kit has some answers for us?" Sam offered. "It sounds kind of like we're in some... I don't know, alternate universe thing?"

"That's what I was thinking, too. But if we are... No, nevermind. Let's talk about this more at school with Tucker and then track down Kit- oh, I forgot to mention. My family picks a "ghost of the week" to hunt each week and this week, it's her."

"Oh, awesome," she said sarcastically. 

"I know, right? Just when I thought my family couldn't get any lamer. But I've got to warn her. I'm gonna go to school now, I'll see you there."

"Alright, see you there."

Danny hung up and left his dishes in the sink before putting on his backpack and sneakers, going ghost, and flying to school.

Once he had changed back behind some trees in the school courtyard, he realized it wasn't that hard to find Kit.

She was currently being teased by Paulina and Star, although she kept her eyes glued to the book in her hands. Paulina gave her a hard nudge, and Kit lost her balance slightly. It wasn't enough to drop her book, but Danny saw her hands go intangible and the book fell right through. To eyes that weren't used to watching for ghost activity, it would've just looked like it slipped out of her hands. Danny walked over, now able to hear Paulina's words. 

"... so clumsy! Typical loser, haha!" Paulina and Star laughed together. "That's probably why you stay cooped up in your house all day!"

"Hey, uh, is there a problem here?" Danny asked, stepping up to them. 

Kit gave him a surprised look, and Paulina just smiled at him. "Why hello, Danny," she said, closing the distance between them. "There's no problem now that you're here. I'll see you in English." She gave him a kiss on the cheek and promptly walked off with star. His jaw dropped a little, and he turned to watch her leave.

"Why do you look so surprised?" Kit asked him. "If you keep your mouth open much longer, bugs might fly in."

Danny turned to her and pointed behind him. "What was that about? Referring both to her interaction with you and me."

Kit picked up her book and dusted it off. "She picks on me all the time cause we're neighbours and I don't live in the most normal household," she explained. "She kissed your cheek because she's your girlfriend."

"Excuse me??" Danny said, his jaw dropping again. He remembered all the years he had wanted to hear someone say those words, but his blind puppy love for her had ended long ago. "I'm not dating Paulina. I'm dating Sam."

Kit snorted and put her book in her bag. "No, she's dating Tucker." Her eyes widened. "Unless there's been some crazy love triangle between you three??"

Danny had to force himself not to go into shock right then and there. He shook his head. "Okay, I'm going to stop this conversation before it gets any more weird. I have to ask you about some more serious things."

"Like what? Does it have to do with why you are acting so weird?" She shouldered her backpack and looked behind him, lifting her hand to a tentative wave. Danny turned and saw Sam and Tucker coming up to them.

"We need a more private place to talk," Danny said.

"About what?" Tucker asked, dropping his hand from waving at Kit.

"Everything." Danny made sure there was no one nearby and lowered his voice so only the other three could hear him. "Listen, I think we slipped into a parallel universe."

"Excuse me?" Tucker said. "Everything seems normal though!"

"My sister and I apparently are ghost fighters, the ghost portal at my house doesn't work therefore there's no way I could've ever gotten my powers, I'm apparently dating Paulina, and you guys are dating each other."

His two best friends stared at him in shock. "I'm sorry, did you say Tucker and I are dating?" Sam demanded.

"For a year and a half," Kit pitched in. "Danny and Paulina started dating six months ago when he saved her from a ghost and also saved her new pink sweater from being ruined by some ecto goo stuff."

There was a brief pause. "Okay, we're in another dimension, I'm sold," Tucker said. 

"I didn't know other dimensions existed," Kit said. "I mean, except the ghost zone, but I've only been in there twice." Something in her voice made it sound like neither trip was voluntary. 

The bell for homeroom rang. "We'll have to figure this out later, do we have any classes together?" he said, turning to Kit. 

"A few, yeah," she said.

"Then I'll see you there. The four of us can meet back up during lunch," he said. 

They all went to their respective home rooms, and Danny tried to act as normal as he could. He discovered at his locker that Dash didn't beat him up, but invited him to a party that weekend. His head was swimming, trying to keep up.


	3. When "Paulina Fenton" Just Doesn't Work Anymore

His first class was English, and Paulina tried to flirt with him in class, but he told her he thought he was catching a cold and she backed off. He spotted Kit sitting near the back, doodling in a notebook, and he made his way back, sitting next to her. 

She looked up at him. "What are you doing?"

"Sitting next to you?" he said, pulling his book out.

"Okay, but you usually sit up front with Paulina," she told him. "If you sit with me, everyone will be suspicious."

"I told Paulina I was catching a cold, and she asked me not to sit with her. Relax, it's fine!" he assured her. She didn't look convinced, but she didn't say anything else. 

Mr. Lancer started class and told them to discuss the homework in pairs. Danny welcomed this opportunity to talk to Kit more, and immediately scooted his desk closer to hers when everyone began moving around. He fumbled around in his backpack, finding that he in fact did not have the homework, so he just pushed his backpack back on the floor and folding his arms across his desk.

"You're really stirring up trouble here," she muttered. "But I suppose we have bigger problems to deal with." She spread out her homework in front of her and slid it over to him. "There, so it looks like you actually have the assignment with you." She then pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper that resembled the homework she had just given him and set it down on her notebook.

"What is that?" he asked, pointing to the ruined paper.

"The homework. I did it after class yesterday and Paulina "accidentally" dropped my notebook in a clogged up sink in the bathroom. My homework was ruined so I redid it. This is the ruined copy," she explained. "Now, tell me about the universe you come from. How did you get here?"

Danny knew Paulina was shallow, but he never thought she could be such a bully. "We were mapping out the ghost zone, and when we saw a portal to Amity Park on the infinity map, we came through it and it must've been a portal to your world."

"I'm sorry, did you say you were mapping out the ghost zo-only problem I had with question three was thinking of the best way to analyze the chapter as a whole," she said, quickly making something up as Lancer neared them. He seemed to have overheard her mention about the homework, made a satisfied look with himself, and walked away. She sighed. "Why on earth would you want to do that??"

"Haven't you ever wanted to explore the ghost zone?" he asked. "It's a pretty incredible place. Didn't you say you've only been in there a few times?" 

Kit huffed and pretended to write on her ruined paper. "Yeah, only twice. I dunno, man, I mean..." She sighed. "I can't say I'm not intrigued by it, but I have no reason to go in there again. I didn't have any business going in there the first two times." She crossed her arms tightly, not looking him in the eye anymore. He couldn't help but wonder if she got her powers the same way he did.

When he thought about it, he really only had the courage to go into the ghost zone the first few times because he had Sam and Tucker with him, and then there was the time he had to get his dad's anniversary present back. "Do you fight ghosts that like come in from the ghost zone?" he asked her. She nodded, and he considered his next question. "Where do they come from? In my universe, my family has a portal in my house. My parents made it. It's what gave me my powers," he said. 

She met his eyes, giving him a quizzical look. "How did the portal give you your powers?"

"When they built it, it didn't work, but I went inside to check it out and accidentally hit a button inside while I was in it. It fused my DNA with ghost ectoplasm, making me a half ghost." He rubbed the back of his head. That happened forever ago, yet he could still remember the feel of his DNA being altered perfectly.

"Thats... crazy," she said. "I mean... I guess that's what gave me my ghost powers, ectoplasm merging with my DNA, I mean." She flexed her hand, considering the thought, and then rested her chin on her fist, looking at him again. "My family aren't scientists and the subject isn't exactly my Forte, so I've never really thought about the, uh, technicalities of it."

"How did you get your powers then?" he asked her, making sure there wasn't anyone paying any attention to them. 

"Uh," she said, running a hand through her hair. "It's kind of-"

"Alright everyone, pass up your papers and bring out your poetry books, we're starting chapter nine today," Lancer said, interrupting their conversation. Kit threw her crumpled up paper back into her bag and passed her finished copy up to the front. She pulled her book out.

Danny thankfully had his poetry book, and they both flipped to the page Lancer told them. He didn't get another chance to ask Kit about ghost stuff during class, though he noticed that she kept her arms folded across her chest, keeping her body language pretty seclusive. 

After class, she told him she would see him during gym, hurrying out of class as Paulina approached him. 

"Danny, why did you sit with that loser girl? What is going on?" she demanded, slapping her perfectly manicured hand onto his desk. 

He sighed, thinking about how much he didn't really want to do what he knew needed to be done. He stood up and pulled his backpack on. "Paulina, I'm sorry about this- like, really sorry. You don't understand how much this pains my inner self-"

"Excuse me, what do you think you're doing?!" Paulina demanded, slamming her hands on her hips. "Are you trying to break up with me?! You don't break up with me, /I/ break up with /you!/"

"Well, whichever way you want it to go, as long as we're over, that's all that matters," he said, picking up his poetry book and shoving his other hand in his pocket. He left the room as Paulina and her friends exchanged a series of disgusted and outraged noises. His heart was pounding in his chest. If only he could go back to two-years-ago Danny and tell him that one day he would be breaking up with Paulina... His lips tugged into a smile just imagining how much his past self would've laughed at that. Heck, he was almost laughing at it now, and he just did it.

Danny had his next class with Tucker and then the next with Sam and quietly exchanged notes and thoughts with them, telling them about his brief conversation with Kit. 

"Do you think she has a portal?" Tucker asked him. 

"I'm not sure, maybe?" Danny said, trying to take notes as the teacher went on about some historical thing. "She has said she's gone into the ghost zone twice, but didn't mention how. She also said her home life isn't normal, maybe they're into ghost fighting or something too?"

"I dunno man, I know I've seen her around, I mean I've probably hit on her before, but I really don't know anything about her. I doubt there would be two ghost hunting families in town and us never notice it," Tucker said, absently tapping on his PDA. 

During his class with Sam, he briefed her on his conversation with Tucker as well. 

"We'll if her family isn't a bunch of scientists, maybe you should find out what they do? But then again, is that really relevant to us getting back to our own dimension?" she asked.

"I honestly don't know what's relevant to us getting home," he said with a sigh. He rested his chin on his fist. "You know, I was thinking... The infamap is supposed to sometimes take you where it thinks you need to go, that's what Frostbite told me. Maybe there's something we have to do here?" 

"Maybe, that could make sense," she said with a nod. "If that is the case, I can't help but feel that now our destiny or whatever is intertwined with Kit's. How cliché does that sound?"

Danny chuckled. "Pretty cliché. We have gym with her next, that'll give us some time to get more information." 

Danny met up with Tucker again in the boys locker room, getting changed for class. Dash came over, uninvited him to his party for getting broken up with by Paulina (because apparently that was the story being spread around), and crammed him inside Danny's locker for good measure. Danny phased out of it, waiting till Dash left to become visible again. 

"Great, I finally had some popularity and it's months too late," he said, reopening his locker and putting his backpack inside. He pulled off his tshirt and replaced it with his Casper High gym shirt. He changed into his shorts and white sneakers, trying to think of what to ask Kit about first. 

"At least we know now that being popular isn't really worth it with how shallow everyone is," Tucker said to try to comfort him. 

"I guess. And I guess it's ironic because back home, I'm popular for my secret and wish I could blend in as a dork no one looks at anymore sometimes." He fluffed up his hair with one hand. "Ah, well, we have bigger things to worry about."

"Sure do, man. I heard we have to run a mile today," Tucker said with a groan. Danny sighed and the pair headed outside. Coach Tetslaff had the students gathered in the center of the track.

"Alright everyone, after running the mile today, as long as you're doing something productive and not sitting around like a bunch of lumps, I don't care what you do," she said. "I'll be at the starting point making sure everyone gets their four lap mile done. First ten people to finish the mile get to skip it next week!" She directed everyone to a starting area on the track and blew her whistle, signaling for everyone to go. 

Danny ran with Tucker as long as they could before they resorted to walking. He didn't see Kit anywhere, but Sam lapped them twice in the first five minutes. "I hate when she does that," Tucker said, only just catching his breath from their last short distance of running. 

After fifteen minutes, they finally finished and found that Sam had already caught up with Kit over by the basketball court. They were idly shooting hoops, mostly missing, but appearing to be doing something to the coach, which was all that mattered. The boys headed over, not catching the end of the girls' conversation before they stopped speaking. Kit looked at both of them, then passed the ball to Danny.

"Heard you broke up with Paulina," she said. "I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone walk so angrily through the halls before."

He shrugged and dribbled the ball briefly. "It had to be done. She'll deal with it however popular people deal with those things." He tossed the ball at the hoop, surprisingly getting it through the net. He stepped over and retrieved it, dribbling it again. "We've got more important things to discuss though."

"Sam mentioned you guys got here with something called an infamap," Kit said, watching him idly dribble. "But you guys need a ghost portal to use it to get back, right? Back to, uh, your dimension."

"Not necessarily. Ghost portals open up randomly all the time, the map shows us when and where, but a portal is a more efficient navigation place," Danny explained. "Do you know where a working portal is in town?" He tossed the ball to her.

Kit caught it and stared at it, bouncing it twice before passing it off to Tucker. "Um," she began. "Kind of." She watched Tucker toss the ball at the hoop and miss. Danny considered prompting her further, but he decided to wait. She rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah, I do, but it won't be easy to show all three of you," she continued. "I can probably only show it to one of you until I think of... Another way..." She mumbled the last part, and he could tell she was already thinking.

"That's pretty vague," Sam said. "Is it in a dangerous place or something?"

Kit crossed her arms and looked at Danny, then Sam. "You could say that. My uncle lives in the bottom level of our house. He works for the government as a researcher for the Guys in White."

Danny's mouth dropped open a bit. "He's a Guy in White?"

Sam shot a couple hoops and passed the ball to Danny, who idly dribbled, awaiting an answer. 

"Not exactly. I mean, he is, but he doesn't do any ghost fighting really. He researches ghosts and ecto-stuff. He helps develop weapons." She kicked a rock that was near her foot. "He also does tests on and experiments on ghosts and ecto-based life forms."

Danny's parents were always making crazy anti-ghost stuff, but they'd never really had any of the crazy stuff going on like the Guys in White did. Besides, his parents were kind of idiots, he didn't have much trouble fooling them. He couldn't imagine how it felt to live with those creeps. "And your uncle has a portal?" he asked Kit.

She nodded. "He bought it from your parents a couple years ago. His bosses told him to start conducting new research, and now he buys technology and stuff from the Fentons which makes your family wealthier and the Guys in White more dangerous," she said. Danny could hear the seriousness in her tone along with some fear, and he didn't blame her. The Guys in White were also idiots, but they were dangerous idiots. "A couple months ago, he shut down the portal for some renovations, and I tried to destroy it for good to end his research. It, uh, didn't really go according to plan." Kit hesitated, then quickly picked back up the conversation before anyone could speak. "But, uh, that's beside the point. I can get one of you to the portal, but only for a few minutes. He's always in the lab, but I can buy us a few minutes."

Danny exchanged looks with Sam and Tucker. He wished all of them could go check it out, but he needed to see it for himself. "I'll go with you. Can we go after school?" he asked her. He tried to throw the basketball up into the hoop, but he missed and watched the ball rebound off the backboard and fly towards Kit's face. 

She caught it with impressive reflexes. "Yeah, that's fine. although we may need to leave right after school. Whenever your parents come pick you up, they always try to talk to me about my uncle's latest projects, and I'd rather avoid that today." 

Danny was going to make a confused comment about his parents again, but Coach Tetslaff yelled at them from across the courtyard to stop standing around. They continued chatting while actively looking like they were playing more. 

The rest of the day passed by relatively quickly. It probably helped that Danny wasn't paying much attention to anything; his thoughts were pretty centered around how he was going to figure out how to get himself, Tucker, and Sam back to their own dimension. During lunch, they joined Kit, and she told them more about the work her uncle does. It sounded like pretty generic Guys in White stuff, but she seemed more and more uneasy the more she spoke. He remembered her mentioning trying to trash the portal and wondered what could have gone wrong.


	4. Within the Vantas Household

At the end of the day, he waited outside just after the bell for Kit to meet up with him. He looked around and didn't see her, but he saw his parents' Fenton Assault Vehicle coming down the road. They really picked him and Jazz up from school in this universe? In the Assault Vehicle? He decided this place couldn't get any lamer. 

Suddenly, the familiar wave of cool energy washed over him, and he looked down to find his body was gone. He noticed a hand on his back now, holding his shirt, and he was yanked back through the wall of the building. By the time he became tangible again, his shirt was released and he turned to see Kit standing behind him. "Hi there," he greeted. He glanced around, finding that they were in one of the classrooms.

"Hi. Sorry, saw your parents coming. Hope you don't mind flying to my place," she said. She was already changed into her ghost form. Her lavender hair fell across one of her shoulders. 

"That's fine," he said, willing his ghost DNA to take over. The light energy rings appeared and changed him into his ghost half. "I've never seen a ghost with purple hair like that before. It's cool."

She examined a chunk of her hair in her hand. "Oh, thanks. Everything kind of went inverted when I got my powers. I guess some kind of purple is the opposite of dark blonde?" She shrugged. "My outfit was originally an orange jumpsuit thing I got at a space camp a few years ago. It's way more flattering as this blue colour, honestly."

"Space camp, huh? Do you like space and astronauts and stuff?" he asked. He knew there was a bit of eagerness in his tone. He was always excited for an opportunity to talk about space.

"I mean, yeah, I find it all really interesting and stuff," she said. "I enjoy reading about it, but I could never be an astronaut or go to space myself. I've got a fear of heights and an emotional attachment with gravity."

"Man, space is so cool though. I'd love to be an astronaut some day." The pair turned intangible and flew out of the building. Once they were in the sky, they became visible again, and he followed Kit's lead. "So what do you want to do then, like when you grow up?"

She was silent briefly. "Not sure," she admitted. "I really like art. Maybe illustrating or something one day? I’m not really sure yet.”  
“That’s pretty neat,” Danny said, interest clear in his voice. He’d never really known anyone into art before. Unless Sam’s gothic slam poetry counted as art, which he honestly felt was a stretch sometimes. More often just angsty speaking than anything, honestly.

She glanced at him. "Thanks. I just hope I can get away from the ghost hunting stuff one day to actually have a chance at a normal life."

“I’m with you on that one,” he said with a sigh.

She slowed as they hovered above a normal looking home. It was three stories, not terribly different looking than his own, but most of the houses on the street looked different rather than lots of the cookie cutter neighbourhoods in Amity Park. Kit flew down and phased through the roof. Danny followed, watching a vague, spectral trail following behind her as she flew through the house. He found her stopped in a bedroom. She became visible again and changed back to her human form, so he did the same. 

He looked around, seeing simple light green walls, a mattress on the floor in the corner, a desk and dresser on the opposite wall, and various video games, sketchbooks, and knick knacks scattered in organised piles on the floor.

"Sorry, I wasn't expecting to have company today," she said quietly, kicking some clothes into the corner of the room. "Alright, come with me, but stay invisible until I say so."

"Got it," he said, doing as she asked. He kept his human DNA at the front of his mind, but pulled the sensation of invisibility from the back of his mind where he tried to keep the ghost stuff packed away. A cool wave washed over him, and he looked down to see his body was no longer there.

Kit exited her room and headed downstairs. He found that they were on the third floor, and couldn't help but look around as they walked. The house was simple, but tasteful. There was little kid art work all along the wall lining the stairs. He wondered if it was Kit's from when she was a kid.

The third floor was mostly bedrooms, and the second floor had a den, another bedroom, and what appeared to be a dining room space. He saw some counters off to the side, along with a mini fridge and a few stools pulled up to an island. It looked like a kitchen used to be there, but there were just some towels and buckets in the sink and no dinnerware, dishwasher, or stove to be found.

He followed her down to the ground level. He spotted an adult woman who didn't look any older than his mom typing away on a laptop at a desk. The small office space was immediately to the left of the stairs, and there was a living room directly opposite from it, along with the front door.

"Hey mom," Kit greeted.

Her mother looked up. "Hello dear! I didn't even hear you come in!" 

"Came in through the back door," Kit said casually. "I was checking on my plants, so I went around back first."

"Ah gotcha."

"Hey, is Uncle Tanner downstairs? I wanted to see if he could help me with my science homework." Danny wondered if she had come up with these cover stories beforehand or if these were coming up on the spot.

"Yeah, he's down working on some new machine or whatever, " Kit's mother said.

"Cool, thanks," Kit said. She walked walking into the living room. The front door was on the opposite wall and the stairs leading to the upper levels of the house were to their right, almost directly in front of the front door. The layout wasn't too different from his own living room. To their left, on the wall opposite of the front door, was another door, and Kit walked towards it. She opened the door, and Danny followed her in, descending down the staircase they revealed.

Once they were downstairs, he realized that their basement looked eerily similar to the Fenton basement as well. There were many tables full of gadgets and blueprints and other science things. There were several large glass chambers attached to large computers. Some tables had beakers and test tubes full of troubling bubbling liquids. And there at the end of the room was none other than the Fenton ghost portal, fully operational and currently locked. Danny walked away quietly to look around.

Sat at one of the tables with blueprints on it was a middle aged man with an average stature and messy short blond hair; his stubble was a darker blond that had some grey mixed in. He had glasses that were pushed up close on his nose, and the sleeves of his cardigan were pushed up to his elbows. He was writing carefully on a notepad, and there were several sheets full of writing next to the notepad. 

Kit walked over to him as Danny silently flew over to the portal to look it over. 

"Hey Uncle Tanner," she said.

The man glanced at her, finishing a sentence he was writing before giving her his full attention. "Hey, Kitkat, what's up?" 

"Nothing really, just wanted to see what you were up to today," she said casually, looking at his notes. "What's this?"

"New theory on how to separate the molecules of ectoplasm," he said simply. Tanner adjusted his glasses and stretched his arms.

"Don't the ecto rays and stuff already do that?" Kit asked.

"Technically yes. The ecto rays blast the ectoplasmic atoms apart and destroy the part of the ghost it hits, but then you can't analyze the atoms because they're damaged or destroyed."

"That's... not good," Kit said, a hint of nervousness in her voice.

"With this new theory, it pulls the ghost apart, dissolving the exterior physical form and stripping the atoms apart so they can be studied later." Tanner rearranged his notes and scribbled a few things down. 

Danny shuddered. He hated hearing about this stuff, for obvious reasons. He floated in front of the portal and looked at the lock on the door. It was just like the one he kept on the portal, but he wasn't sure if it worked the same. He reached out and touched it curiously.

Instantly, a very loud alarm went off and started blaring in the basement. Danny forced himself to remain invisible. He saw Kit nearly jumped out of her skin. She went invisible briefly and quickly backed away from her uncle, who stood up calmly. Thankfully, he didn't appear to notice his niece's panic; unthankfully, he walked over to a button on the wall by the stairs and pressed it.

"What's happening?" Kit yelled over the alarm. 

"There's a ghost in here, I'm activating the anti-ecto filter to get rid of it," he said simply. 

The alarm quieted and a voice said, "Ghost Alarm deactivated. Cleansing all ecto organisms."

Danny realized what that meant for him and quickly flew up to an upper level of the house. He found himself back in the living room and saw Kit rushing into the room from the staircase. She stopped in the doorway and leaned on the doorframe to catch her breath.

Tanner joined her shortly, still calm, looking amused. "Ghosts really freak you out, don't they, kiddo? Don't worry, whatever was in there is gone now." He patted her shoulder.

"Yeah, I really hope so," she muttered. 

Tanner checked his watch. "The cleanse should be done now, but I've got a Skype meeting in five minutes. Come back down to the lab later tonight and I'll show you some new gear I made."

"Sounds good," she said. She waited until Tanner went upstairs and heard his door close to hurry back into the basement. Danny flew after her. She stood in the room silently for a moment before whispering, "Danny?"

"Here," he said quietly. He landed in front of her and became visible again. He phased back into his human self and walked over to the door. "I put a lock just like this on my portal, but your uncle may have different precautions for it."

"It's a DNA scanner with a password," she said. "It's only works for his and my touch, and I know the password." She walked over to the terminal. "He gets message notifications to his PDA whenever there's activity with it, so if you want to go inside, we'll have to do it at night when he's asleep. I'll get his PDA as well, just in case."

"Can we go in tonight?" Danny asked, turning to her. "I know who I need to find to help."

Kit hesitated. "Yeah, I can make it work. But we need to get out of here for now, come with me."

They made their way up the stairs, Kit telling him to just stay in his human form. She walked over to the front door and opened it, saying "Oh, hi Danny. Come on in." She then closed the door and gestured for him to follow her upstairs. He did so, checking out the house a bit more as they went up to her room on the third floor. 

"Your house is really similar in layout to mine," he commented as she shut the door behind him.

"Is it?" she said. She moved and sat at her desk. "I used to live in a smaller house in a different part of town till we moved in with my uncle here. This is like a family house or something. He let the Guys In White use it as a small head quarters until he got promoted and decided to use the place just for himself. His bosses found a better place for a HQ and so my uncle offered for us to move in here with him. No rent, plenty of space." She shrugged.

Danny walked around, looking at the art and posters on the walls. "When did he buy my parents' portal?"

Kit paused to think. "Maybe six months ago? It took almost three months to transport and set up here. Your parents didn't build it to move around, and there had to be a lot of construction done down in the basement for the portal itself and whatever."

"Didn't you say you got your powers when it was being worked on or something?" he asked.

"Yeah, so what happened was this: the portal was finished and everything was working, but my uncle wanted to run some diagnostics on it, so he had it shut on and off several times each day for like a month. I work with him in his studies and stuff, so one day when he had to go to the HQ, I was doing his tests and when it turned on, I, uh..." She paused and swiveled in her chair a little. "I got curious and left it on, just watching the weird green vortex and watched how it fluctuated and stuff, and…” She hesitated again. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Basically, a ghost came out and dragged me into the ghost zone with it."

Danny furrowed his eyebrows and watched her. She kept her eyes on the sketchbook in front of her on the desk, and she tapped her fingers on the pencil. 

"It was really freaky, obviously," she continued. "But it basically just dragged me to like it's ghost lair or whatever it had and... I dunno, I don't really know how to explain it. There were more ghosts there and they all attacked me for whatever reason. They were taunting me, but I don’t remember if I could really understand them or not. Somehow their ectoplasmic attacks just burned into my skin and veins, and it must've fused with my DNA, like you said earlier. I guess all that ghost energy at once just overpowered my human DNA and created a new side to me. It's kinda blurry how I flew out of there, but I made it back into the lab, changed back somehow, and pretended to have a bad head cold so my uncle wouldn't ask me to help him again for like a week."

"That's pretty... intense," was all Danny could think to say after a few silent moments. "When did that happen?"

"Two months ago," she said, turning to look at him now. "The second time I went in, I was trying to mess around with phasing back and forth and accidentally knocked myself into the portal. That's when I met the ghost I was fighting when you found me yesterday."

"Who was she?"

"A ghost named Rae Plasmius," she said. "She kind of sucks."

Danny held up his hands. "Hold on, did you say Plasmius?" he asked. "What about Vlad Plasmius?"

"Who?"

"Vlad Plasmius," Danny said again. "He's a half ghost like us. Adult guy, really evil, blue skin and big black hair? He's got a cape and everything."

Kit gave him a confused look. "I've never seen a ghost like that before," she said. "I've never met another half ghost until you, either."

Danny considered that. "You might know his human self then, it's Vlad Masters."

Kit's eyes widened. "Vlad Masters is a ghost??"

"He's a half ghost in my universe, but I don't know about here..." Danny felt his phone start vibrating in his pocket, and he pulled it out and looked at the screen. "It's my mom," he said, then hesitantly answered it. "Hey mom," he answered.

"Hello sweetie!" she said. "Where are you? We didn't see you after school."

Danny rubbed his neck. "Uh, I went over to Tucker's house, we have a project to do together," he lied. 

"Oh, okay, well hurry home! We are getting ready to go look for that ghost girl!"

"Ohh, uh, right of course. Okay, sounds good mom."

"Don't forget your jumpsuit, too!!"

"Right. Got it. Okay, bye." He hung up and squinted at his phone. He didn't know what to do, except...

He turned to Kit. "So apparently my family hunts down a new ghost every week, and this week they want to hunt you down."

Her eyes widened with shock and confusion. "Me? They want to.. what?"

Danny shook his head. "I have no idea, honestly. But I won't let them hurt you, I promise. I'm going to go along with whatever stuff they do in this universe until we can figure out how to get home." He sighed.

"I wish they'd hunt Plasmius," Kit grumbled, spinning in her chair and landing a soft kick to her desk. "She's the real threat."

Danny thought back to when he saw the other ghost yesterday. He remembered her taking something from Kit. "Hey, what was it she took from you yesterday?"

Kit gave him a confused look, and then horror spread across her features. "Oh, no. I almost completely forgot about that." She put her head in her hands for a moment before pulling back up. "She's been trying to construct a new weapon to add to her ghost portal or something in her lab, and that was the like dangerous part of the weapon-naturally. It was an ectogenerator, using power from ghosts and ectoplasm to power whatever nasty machines she has. She stole it from my uncle's lab, and I got it back from her. I was trying to destroy it physically because it's immune to ectoplasm damage, and I only broke it a little before she stole it back."

"That... does not sound good," Danny said. "I definitely want to find out more about her. What else do you know?"

"Not much," she admitted. "Just that she sucks. She's really evil. She just seems to cause meaningless havoc, and it feels like she does it just to mess with me. I don’t know what her ultimate evil plans are." She shrugged. 

Danny considered this. He stood up. "Alright. I'm gonna go home and distract my family for a while and keep them off your trail. I'll come back later this evening so you can show me the portal again."

Kit nodded. "Okay. Good luck." She grabbed a sticky note from her desk and scribbled her phone number down in clear print. "Call if you have any issues or something."

He nodded, took the sticky note, tore off the bottom half, and wrote his own number down. "You too."

Danny followed Kit downstairs so she could let him out the front door and leave like a normal human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the ten thousand year gap between chapters. i keep everything on my phone and it just takes some time to focus and move it all to my computer and, eventually, ao3 (':
> 
> thank you for your kudos and reviews!! the story is still continuing


	5. Late Night Ghost Zone Field Trip

Once Danny was home, he tried to go along with what his family said was normal, which was, unfortunately, putting on his old jumpsuit, the white and black one that he put on when he entered the portal so long ago, strapping up with ghost hunting guns, and riding around town in the Assault Vehicle. 

"We have her ecto-signature honed into the BOOoomerang," Jack Fenton said, tossing it into the back to Danny, who caught it carefully. "Got ahead and toss it out, son! Let's begin the hunt!"

"Uh, alright," Danny said, leaning out of the window and holding the boomerang outside. His hair flew behind him as the RV drove down the street. He silently hoped that her ecto-signature wasn't actually in this, but there was only one way to find out. He threw it and felt his dad step on the gas, speeding away to follow the tracker.

It led them around town, and Jack took many dangerously sharp turns before it found its location. Danny recognized where they were, and saw Tanner and Kit out on the front steps of their house. Kit sat on the middle of the staircase with a book in her hands, scribbling something down as Tanner spoke. The man held a small green jar in one hand and some device Danny didn't recognize in the other hand. The boomerang flew towards Tanner who's back was to the road, and Kit looked up just in time to see it coming towards them. She pointed and yelled something, and Tanner turned calmly, stepping aside to miss it. The boomerang curved around him and flew towards Kit. She held up her book as a shield, and the boomerang hit it hard enough to knock her over on the steps. It fell to rest on the step next to her. She went to pick it up, but then looked over at the Fenton Assault Vehicle that screeched to a stop before the house.

Tanner bent over and picked up the tracker, examining it thoughtfully. Jack, Maddie, and Jazz jumped out of the RV.

"Where's the ghost girl?!" Jack demanded. "Come out here, spook!" Danny poked his head out the door and met Kit's eyes. She looked terrified, and he tried to give her an apologetic look. 

Tanner turned to look at them. "Ah, the Fentons. On the hunt again?"

"Oh, hello, Tanner!" Maddie said. Her portable tracker was beeping loud that there was a ghost nearby. "Yes, we're looking for that ghost girl!"

The boomerang said in its recorded voice, "There is a ghost right in front of you. You have found the ghost."

Kit picked herself up from the bottom step and said, "The only ghost here is the ectoplasm in that jar." She pointed to the specimen in her uncle's hand. 

Maddie walked over and took the boomerang when Tanner offered it to her. "Strange, I know the DNA we entered belonged to the ghost girl..."

"So this is some tracking device?" Tanner asked her. "I enjoy the humorous design design of it."

"Thanks, that was my idea," Jack said with a grin. "We'd love to tell you about it more, but we've got to get going! She's out there somewhere and we are gonna catch her. C’mon, kids!" The Fenton parents jumped back in the RV. 

"See you later, Mr. Vantas," Jazz said, taking the boomerang back and following suit. 

Danny met Kit's eyes again before sitting back in his seat. He saw Kit run inside the house as they drove away. Jazz threw the boomerang out the window, and Jack began driving after it again. 

"I have to use the bathroom," Danny said, and he rushed to the back of the RV, locking himself in the bathroom. He phased into his ghost form and flew up out of the car, flying alongside the RV while staying invisible. 

Gotta make sure that boomerang doesn't go back to her, he thought to himself. He flew faster, going far ahead of the RV and caught up with the boomerang. He followed it as it turned a corner and grabbed it, turning it invisible. He flew behind a building and turned visible again. He tinkered with it for a moment, and managed to pop it open. He used a small ecto ray from his finger to burn several of the wires, and he pulled a few out himself. He figured that would get them some time, and he popped it back together, throwing it down into the street where his parents would drive and see it. 

Speaking of which, he heard the RV getting closer, and he turned invisible again, flying back and returning to the bathroom. He changed back to his human half and went back to his seat. His family didn't notice, they were all hunched over the tracker on the dashboard, muttering about what happened to it. 

"Look there!" Jazz said, pointing out the windshield. Jack quickly braked, and he, Maddie, and Jazz raced out to pick up the damaged boomerang.

"It's fried," Jack said, inspecting it closely. "And there's signs of ecto-damage to it. She must be nearby and onto us..."

"What do we do now?" Danny asked. 

"We'll have to continue tomorrow," Maddie said, slightly defeated, "since we don't have anything else to track her by for now." 

Danny breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Jazz looked at him and raised an eyebrow, and he said, "Darn, I was really hoping we would get that ghost!!"

"Me too!" Jack agreed. "We need to get this fixed right away!" He ran back inside the RV, and the other Fentons followed suit. 

Once they were back at the house, Danny pretended to feel sick, and went to the bathroom, fake vomiting for a few minutes before announcing that he was going to bed and to please not disturb him so he could properly rest off this stomach bug. His mother actually walked him upstairs and felt his face several times to see if he was running a fever, but told him he felt very cold and told him to go bundle up right away. As soon as she left, he shut and quietly locked his door and moved to his bed. He pulled his jumpsuit off and pulled some jeans over his boxers. He decided to put on the shirt he'd worn earlier since it was probably the only one that didn't stink of closet. After he was ready, he grabbed his backpack, made sure the infamap was inside, and changed into his ghost half. His clock read that it was already a little after ten, and he hoped Kit was ready for him. He turned intangible and flew out of the house and over to Kit's house.

Once there, he flew around to the outside of Kit's window. He saw her inside playing video games in a bubble chair, and he turned visible, then knocked on the window. She looked over immediately, and waved for him to come in. Once he phased inside, he turned visible again and landed next to her.

"Ready?" 

Kit nodded and stood up. She plucked a PDA from her desk and pressed a few buttons on it. "Muting the volume on here, and disabling the alarms on the portal," she mumbled. 

"Is your uncle asleep?" Danny asked. It was only like half after ten, which Danny didn't consider very late.

"Yeah he goes to bed like at nine," she said. Once she was satisfied with the PDA, she told him to go to the lab with her. She went invisible, so he did the same and just flew down to the basement. 

Once in the lab, he turned visible again and saw Kit locking the door to the main part of the house. She then went and began opening the portal. Danny examined lots of the scary looking weapons laying around while he waited. 

"Okay," she said, and he turned around just in time to watch the familiar green vortex of the ghost portal open before him. he walked over and saw Kit taking a deep breath. 

"Hey, are you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. She closed her eyes, and he watched as she changed into her ghost form. her blue and black jumpsuit looked like it was probably made of the same kind of spandex his was made of. "Just nervous about going in here on purpose for once. You know where you need to go, right?" She set her uncle's PDA on the control desk.

Danny took the infamap out of his bag. "Yeah, I do. I'm sure he will help, but I don't know how he will react to me having this map. I kind of saved the ghost zone from an evil ghost king, so I'm like a hero to this guy's people. That's really the only reason he trusts me with the map."

"Wow so you're like an official super hero in your universe, huh?" she asked.

Danny shrugged. He lifted up his feet so that he was floating, and she did the same. "Take my hand and make sure you don’t let go, okay?"

Kit nodded after a brief moment of hesitation and took his hand. He felt a strange cold tingle at their touch. It felt a bit like electricity, but not in the painful way. He realized that they were still standing there, so he cleared his throat and held out the infamap in his free hand, letting it shoot them into the ghost zone. 

\--

Once he entered the familiar green realm, Danny turned his head and saw Kit’s startled expression. 

"Sorry- should’ve warned you about the speed of this thing." he said. The ghost zone was zipping past them, moving them a little faster than his fastest flying speed. “Are you alright?”

She looked at him, anxiety swimming in her glowing green irises. “It’s okay. And not really. It’s nerve wracking being in here and feeling… Nevermind.” She looked forward, breaking their gaze. 

Danny looked at her a few moments more before looking ahead, noting familiar landmarks.

"So who are we looking for?" Kit asked. “Where is this taking us?”

"His name is Frostbite; he’s got this village on an ice realm in here. He's the Guardian of the infamap. I'm hoping that because he knows all about the map that he will know if there's a way to find a portal back to my universe." Danny sighed. "I've got another idea if he can't help us, but I don't know how reliable it will be."

"I'm glad we are going with reliable first then," she commented. Danny agreed and they flew in silence for a few more minutes. 

"Have you ever had an encounter with my parents while in your ghost form? They had your DNA in that tracking boomerang, that's why it came after you," he said, unsure if it was a good idea to bring this subject up but too curious to leave it be any longer.

"Your sister found me once while I was fighting Rae," Kit said. "She caught me in a net from a net gun thing, but I got out while she and Plasmius were fighting. I guess she got my ecto-signature from that somehow. Ugh, weird." She shuddered and tightened her grip on his hand. Another small, cold shock vibrated through his fingers and up his arm.

Danny considered this. He still couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that Jazz loved hunting ghosts. He was going to have to tell his Jazz about it if he got home.

No, not if. When. He was getting home one way or another, no “if” about it.

After a few more minutes of flying, Danny pointed to a floating icy island. "There," he said. They flew down, and Danny scanned the island looking for the town Frostbite resided in. They flew down and landed on an icy cliff. 

"He's gotta be around somewhere," Danny mumbled. 

"What's he look like?" Kit asked as she floated next to him. She carefully slipped her hand out of his and held her arms over her chest. Danny rolled up the infamap and tried to think of how to explain Frostbite’s appearance.

"Halt!" The two half ghosts turned to see Frostbite and one of his soldiers on patrol on their flying snow mobile thing.

"Like that," Danny said.

"Abominable... snow.. wolves..?" she said, tilting her head.

"You two are intruders upon our land, state your names and business here!" Frostbite said.

"Danny Phantom and Kit Phantom," Danny announced. "We are here to see you, Frostbite." He held up the rolled up infamap, and he saw the ice king's eyes widen. "We need your help."

Frostbite flew down to them and reached out for the map, but Danny held it away. "How did you get your hands on that? Explain yourselves, now!"

Danny held his hands up defensively, keeping the hand holding the map farther away from Frostbite. "I'm from another universe, and the version of you from my universe lent me this map because I was mapping out the ghost zone. The map brought me to an alternate world of my home, and I don't know how to get back. I need your help, you're the only person who understands how this works."

Frostbite looked him over twice. "You're telling the truth. Your story is..."

"Crazy, I know," Danny said. "I just really need your help."

Frostbite considered this. "Come with us back to the storage chambers. I must see if my infamap is still in tact."

He flew away then on the snow hovercraft thing, and Kit and Danny followed suit. It was a short flight back to the village, and once they got there, Frostbite led the phantoms into the cave where he kept the infamap. Frostbite opened the magic chest, and pulled out his infamap. Danny felt strange, seeing two infamap at once. A weird aura of power filled the room.

Frostbite looked at him. "It appears you truly are telling the truth. You are from another universe." He looked at Kit. "And you?"

"I'm from this universe, just kind of helping out here," she said, waving her hands in front of her.

Frostbite replaced his infamap back in the chest. "Since the alternate version of myself trusts you with the infamap, you must know how it truly works. There is no way to force a portal like that to open. You must wait for another portal to show itself naturally."

Danny's stomach fell. He had hoped that Frostbite knew some tricks about the portals. 

"I've never heard of the map revealing portals to other dimensions, however. I'd never considered the possibility," he continued.

"What do you think is happening in my dimension?" Danny asked helplessly. "Is my family just wondering where I am, like do you think I'm just missing?"

"I cannot say, Danny Phantom. It is entirely possible that the version of yourself that existed in this world has now taken your place somehow in your world. You may also be missing all together. Perhaps time is frozen in your world. There is no way to truly know."

Danny's heart fell, and he sighed. Kit placed a hand on his shoulder, looking sympathetic. He had to find a way home. He couldn't sit around and wait.

He straightened his posture. "Thank you, Frostbite. C’mon Kit, let's go."

"Farewell, heroes," Frostbite said with a bow of his head.

Danny jumped and flew up until he was out of Frostbite's land and into the regular ghost zone again. Kit was right behind him. 

"I can't believe we have virtually no way of getting home," he said miserably. 

Kit placed a hand on his arm. "We'll find a way, don't worry." He looked at her to find she was offering him a small smile. 

He took a deep breath and nodded. "Let's get back before we risk anyone finding us."


	6. Portals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M NOT SURE HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE EVER CONSIDERED HOW A GHOST PORTAL WOULD ACTUALLY WORK BUT LET ME TELL YOU, DEAR READER, THAT I ACTUALLY SPENT LIKE BETWEEN TWENTY TO THIRTY MINUTES RESEARCHING AND JUST WRITING IN ONE FLUID MOTION, AN EXPLANATION THAT I AM AT LEAST 95% SURE IS VERY VERY VERY SCIENTIFICALLY SOUND FOR HOW A GHOST PORTAL EXISTS. LIKE HERE IN THIS CHAPTER IS THIS NICE BASE EXPLANATION FOR HOW TO MAKE A GHOST PORTAL LIKE WOW I'M SO PROUD AND SIMULTANEOUSLY SHOCKED AT MYSELF RIGHT NOW.
> 
> GET ON MY LEVEL, DEAR READER!!!

Danny didn't sleep well, and when Jazz came to get him up at 5am again, he got out of bed, and faked feeling sick again, threatening to throw up this time. His mom sent him back to bed, and he ended up mostly just laying awake in bed, dozing off a few times before it was actually time to get up for school.

He got ready, grabbed a pack of poptarts, and left the house early to swing by Sam's house on the way to school. 

Once he got there, Sam was just stepping out of the house. "Danny!" she said with a smile. "What are you doing here?"

"Thought I'd walk you to school, if you'd like." He grinned and took another bite of his poptart. 

"How gentlemanly of you," she mused, walking down the stairs to join him. They kissed briefly, and then began walking towards Amity High. "So how did the ghost zone go last night?"

Danny sighed. "Not great. Frostbite didn't have a way to help us home. It's looking like we're just going to have to wait for another portal to open, if one can open at all." 

"There's gotta be some way..." Sam readjusted the straps on her backpack. "We'll think of something."

"Not to be pessimistic, but none of us are passing science with flying colours, and even if we were, creating a way to do interdimensional travel isn't exactly something we could find in a textbook."

"You know, you can't just say 'not to be pessimistic' and then say something pessimistic and have it not still being the mood down," Sam half-teased.

Danny sighed, and she took his hand. "Listen, we'll figure it out, okay? We always do."

Danny realised that they were nearing a familiar street as they walked. "Hey, I think we're nearing Kit's house."

They walked another two blocks before her house came into view. Her uncle stood out front talking to her while he flipped through some folders in his briefcase. 

"Who's that guy?" Sam asked. 

"Her uncle." A white van then pulled up and the back doors opened, revealing several Guys in White inside. "He's also a Guy in White."

"Yikes."

Tanner handed a few files to Kit before getting in the back of the van with his coworkers and closing the door. The van promptly drove off, and Kit began carefully putting the files in her backpack. 

Danny and Sam walked up to her. "Hey Kit," Danny said. 

She looked up, surprised. "Oh, hi. What are you guys doing here?"

"Looks like your house is on the way to school," Sam said. 

"Oh," Kit said. Then, a blue convertible drove up to the house next to Kit's. Inside was Dash, Kwan, Star, and Dash's mom in the passenger seat.

"Hey losers!" Dash shouted to them. He had sunglasses on and one arm hanging over the side of the door.

Kit and Danny made a disgusted noise at the same time. Mrs. Baxter swatted Dash's arm. "Now Dashy, don't be mean to the other kids!"

"Sorry mom," he said quietly.

Paulina came out of her house and walked down the steps. "Hey you guys, right on time. Hi Mrs. Baxter." She hopped into the remaining spot in the backseat. "See you at school, losers!"

The blue car sped off with the sound of the engine and Mrs. Baxter's voice trailing after it. 

"I don't think I've ever been called a loser twice so early in the morning before," Sam said.

"What were those things your uncle gave you?" Danny asked Kit.

They started walking, and Kit hesitated. "Just some documents we've been working on. They might be useful, but I have to look over them first. I'll tell you more about them later."

They continued walking for a few minutes with idle chatter, until they passed an alley and a stack of boxes exploded. The trio fell to the ground, and the Box Ghost rose from the mess.

He laughed. "It is I, the Box Ghost! Beware puny humans, for I now have the arsenal of this heavy duty cardboard from-" he paused to examine a piece of cardboard that was floating near him, "Frank's ultra home improvement store!" 

Kit, unamused, lifted her hand and fired a small ghost ray at the Box Ghost, which sent him flying into his own mess. She picked herself up and dusted her knees off, offering a hand to Sam, who was directly to her right. Danny stood up and pulled a Fenton thermos out of his backpack, sucking up the box ghost from the rubble. 

"Do you have the Box Ghost in your universe?" Kit asked, eyeing the Fenton thermos.

"Unfortunately," Sam said.

"Where'd you get that?" Kit asked, pointing to the thermos.

 

“My parents made it. It's called the Fenton Thermos,” he said. “Did they not make them here?”

 

Kit snorted. “Everything they make has the name Fenton in it, doesn't it? And not to my knowledge. I've seen Guys in White technology that's similar, but like, it pretty much reduces ghosts straight to ectoplasmic goo.”

 

Danny felt unsettled. “This just captures the ghost, then you plug it into a portal and it releases them back in the ghost zone.”

 

Kit didn't say anything in response. Danny couldn't help but wonder what it was like living in the home of an intense ghost hunting organization. His currently family seemed almost as intense, especially with Jazz helping his parents. That scared him. A lot.

 

***

 

School seemed about as normal as ever now that the popular kids were bullying Danny again. He mostly ignored them, finding time to talk to Kit between classes and during gym to ask her more about the differences he's noticed between universes.

They were paired off for sit ups and push ups for practice for the Presidential Fitness challenge stuff, and Kit volunteered to get her sit ups done first. She laid on the mat and Danny sat with his knees on her shoes, holding her knees by resting his arms across them.

“This stuff is so dumb,” Kit muttered from her sitting position. “I fight ghosts, why do I have to do sit ups for the president?”

Danny breathed out a laugh. “I know right? I think it's fair to say that we get plenty of exercise keeping ghosts at bay.”

“Honestly.” Kit crossed her arms over her chest, and the coach called out to begin. Kit took a deep breath and began doing sit ups. Danny held her legs firmly. She did ten pretty well, but after number twelve, she clearly started to struggle. 

“I- hate- this,” she huffed in between ups. She gave up across after sixteen, trying to catch her breath as she laid down. The ten seconds left mark was called. and she managed to rush four more before time was called. Danny released her legs when she laid back down, and she spread out her arms, trying to catch her breath. “Fine. Maybe I could do ab workouts more, but i can run fast, and that's what should count.”

Danny chuckled and sat on his knees. “I'm pretty bad at all of this stuff. I think I rely too heavily on certain- er, ghost hunting aids to get through the physical parts of fighting.”

Kit hauled herself to a sitting position and flattened her hair. “How often do you go ghost hunting? Like, without your family. Here, you guys go patrol like three times a day.”

Danny shuddered at the thought of getting in the Fenton Assault Vehicle three times a day with his family to go look for spooks. “Every day, pretty much. I try to catch ghosts before they hit my parents’ radar. Just makes things easier for everyone.”

“Except you, it sounds like,” she said, looking at him curiously. 

He shrugged. “Sacrifice for the greater good, I guess.” He smirked a little and traded places with her as Coach Tetslaff called for everyone to get ready for the next round.

Danny laid down and crossed his arms over his chest and felt Kit rest her knees on his feet and her hands on his knees. He felt her staring at him, but he kept his eyes on the ceiling, ready to get the sit ups over with.

“Ready… go!” Tetslaff said, clicking her stopwatch. Danny began doing his situps. He got a bit farther than Kit had before he started having trouble. He figured they were about forty-five seconds in when Kit spoke.

“Hey… Do you like being a ha- uh, you know…” she asked him, remembering halfway through her sentence that it would probably not be best to reveal that they were half-ghosts at school.

The question caught Danny by surprise a little. No one had ever asked him that before. It seemed like everyone always kind of assumed that it was a cool thing, having ghost powers, but no one had ever asked if he liked it. 

Did he like it? What did that even mean? Having ghost powers was awesome for the most part, but it caused him so much trouble and stress and caused him to almost fail the ninth grade. He’d failed so many tests, gone to so many detentions, been lectured by his parents so many times… But he’d also saved the world lots of times, too. He’d stopped plenty of ghosts from taking over or ruining the world more times than he could count. He’d saved so many people that just that fact alone made it feel worth it to him to have endured everything he had. Of course, none of those ghosts would’ve ever threatened the world if he hadn’t accidentally opened that portal…

Danny’s head started to hurt. Part of it was definitely from the sit ups.

“Time!” Tetslaff called. 

Danny finished his last sit up and laid back on the floor, breathing slightly heavy. Kit’s weight carefully removed itself from his legs. He sat up after a moment of breathing and stretched out one of his legs, resting his arm on the other knee. He looked at Kit.

“Yeah. I do like it,” he decided finally.

Kit sat flat on her knees and had her hands in her lap, watching him with an expression he couldn’t quite read. She nodded when he responded, but didn’t say anything.

“Do you?” he asked her.

She considered the question and bit her bottom lip. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I think I do.”

“Alright, everyone! Laps for the last thirty minutes of class!” called out the coach. Most students groaned, but everyone rose and headed to the track.

Danny and Kit opted for walking, unlike some students who ran or jogged. 

“I had an idea for how to open the kind of portal you guys need,” Kit said once they’d been walking for a few minutes.

Danny looked at her. “Lay it on me.”

She shoved her hands in her pockets. “Have you ever seen or used a portal gun?”

“Like from the video game?” he asked.

She cracked a smile. “No, but that would be tight as hell. I’m talking about like a portable gun that can shoot a ghost portal into existence for a few seconds.”

Danny had to think for a moment. “Yeah, my mom invented one a few months ago. The Guys in White have been trying to replicate it for a while.”

“Do you know how they work?” she asked him.

Another question Danny had never considered. He never thought about how his parents’ inventions worked. Most of them were mind boggling to him, but he rarely considered the actual mechanics of the equipment for more than a minute or two. “Uh,” was all he said.

“Okay,” she said with a small laugh. “So, do you know how black holes are formed?”

He was beginning to wonder if she was just quizzing him on science now. “Yeah, uh, black holes are formed when stars explode. It has to do with gravity and pressure.”

“Yeah, exactly. When a powerful enough star runs out of power to stabilize the pressure and gravity within its core, the gravity overpowers the pressure and makes the star collapse on itself. The supernova has to be ridiculously powerful, but then when the gravity collapses into the core of the previous star, it creates a black hole,” she explained. “There are theories that black holes are not just infinite pits of high pressure gravity and despair. There are theories that they are actually-”

“Portals to different dimensions,” Danny cut in, remembering reading about theories about this before.

“Right. Well, I guess more like tunnels than portals, but portals sounds cooler. Anyway,” Kit said, running her hand through her hair. “So the way ghost portals are formed is by a ton of electricity, ecto-energy, ectoplasm, and gravity. A ghost portal is created in a similar way that black holes are made. It’s just a lot harder to explain because of the ecto-energy, which can create forces of energy that would take around the force of an exploding super star in a ridiculously smaller amount of energy. Ecto-energy is so much easier contained and controlled because it works in such smaller amounts.”

Danny stared straight ahead as he listened to her talk. He had never even imagined stuff like this before in relevance to ghost equipment. A ghost portal being created in a similar way that black holes are created? He wished he had a glass of water so that he could do a spit take right then and there. He took back every time he ever called his parents idiots. They were geniuses for being able to do this stuff. Mad, mad, geniuses. 

 

“The ring that contains the ghost portal constantly exerts the force of gravity inwards, along with keeping a constant flow of ecto-energy. The portal fires ecto-energy and ectoplasm, to stabilize the actual portal surface, and then uses gravity and the ecto-energy to actually form the portal. When you go through the ghost portal, you’re essentially going through an ecto-black hole to another dimension. It just so happens that the ghost zone is a direct parallel linked to our world. And I guess we know now that every human world and ghost zone have parallel universes that are as simple as one wrong portal away from each other. Interesting.” She mumbled the last bit, touching her chin and seeming to delve into a completely different train of thought entirely.

“Uh, so back to the portal guns..,” Danny said, trying to reel her back in.

“Oh! Right. Anyway, so back to my idea,” she said, straightening her back as they walked. “So that’s how ghost portals are made. Portable ghost portal guns do the same thing, except they exert the energy and gravity outwards to make a physical portal that creates a tear in reality for, usually, a few seconds before it closes and reality heals itself. My point is, if we can figure out what to add to the equation that creates a portal in the first place that will shift the other end of the portal from the ghost zone to an alternate version of this reality, then we should be able to get you guys home.”

Danny turned the thought over in his head. Hypothetically, it made complete sense. Create a portal to his universe. Simple. Find out what to use to create essentially an opposite ghost portal. Not so simple. 

“That makes sense. But it sounds like it could have a lot of ‘ifs’ and confusing variables,” Danny said.

“Maybe… I think I have an idea..,” Kit muttered, putting her hands on her hips as they walked.

“You have a new idea? After just pitching the original idea to me??” 

“Yes. Ohh, this could definitely work. Or at least, it should…”

“How did you get an idea so fast? What is it?” he asked, deciding the latter was a more important question.

“Okay, so if a portal gun creates a portal to the ghost zone while we’re in the human world, theoretically, it should do the opposite if it’s used within the ghost zone, right?” She grinned at him, and Danny could literally see the gears spinning when he looked into her eyes. If he listened hard enough, he figured he could probably hear her train of thought driving at top speed through her brain.

But still, the idea was pretty good. It gave him hope that maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.

“I think that if my parents weren’t trying to hunt down your ghost half, they’d love to have you inventing stuff with them,” he said with a grin. “That sounds like it should work perfectly.”

“I mean, I learned a lot of this stuff from working with my uncle, but I catch on fairly easily,” she said with a small shrug. “It’s also nice to understand how the things that hunt you down work.”

Danny breathed a laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. “Good point.”

Kit reached into the pocket of her gym shorts and pulled out a notepad so small, he was tempted to ask if she had to have it custom made. The notebook had to be maybe two-by-three-inches with the smallest spiral binding he’d ever seen. And naturally, stuck into the tiny spiral binding was a tiny pencil. She flipped to a blank page and began scrawling notes as they walked in her ridiculously tiny notebook. 

She flipped it closed and gave him a curious smile. “I’m going to do some experiments when I get home today. You up for another late-night trip to the ghost zone?”

Danny almost answered yes immediately, but then he wondered how long he could keep blowing off his family. His mom might try to take him to the doctor if he kept up the sick act much longer… He’d have to find another excuse.

But his family would have to take the back burner for another night. 

“I’m in.”


	7. Steps Forward

Tucker and Sam had different reactions when Danny filled them in of the stuff that he and Kit discussed over gym class. 

Tucker, the simple optimist, was all for the idea and insisted on helping to make the new portal gun that would open up the portal to send them home.

Sam, however, was considering other details. “Not to sound ungrateful, but why is she so ready to help us? Do you think she wants something?” she asked, her tone more curious with a twinge of worry than anything.

Danny hesitated, but shook his head. “I don’t think so. I just get a feeling that she’s just helping because she can.”

“That’s a lot of generosity for nothing,” Sam countered.

Danny shrugged. “I dunno, Sam, I just get the feeling that she’s being genuine. Maybe she’s helping because she’s happy just to talk to someone who’s like her,” he said, resting his chin on his fist. “I’ll always be grateful to you guys for being there for me so much like you were after the accident, but I remember thinking how much I wanted someone who just understood what I was really going through at the time. Just someone to talk to or help me figure out my powers. Maybe all she wants is some friends.”

“I haven’t seen her around with any friends while we’ve been here,” Tucker added.

“I guess,” Sam said, still slightly unconvinced.

“You could always just ask her if she has any other intentions, if you’re worried,” Tucker said to Sam, straightening his glasses then tapping his pencil on his desk. “She seems laid back enough that a question like that might not offend her.”

“Ugh, honestly, am I the only one of us who is even remotely concerned here?” Sam asked desperately. “I agree she seems mostly harmless, but she’s even got her own arch nemesis. Do we really want to possibly get wrapped up with that?”

“Her arch nemesis is related to Vlad in some way, so it might turn out that we’ll get wrapped up in it anyway,” Danny pointed out. “I was actually going to look into her today. The ghost’s name is Rae Plasmius. She’s not a half ghost, and she’s around our age, so she can’t be from when Vlad was supposed to get his ghost powers in the 80s.”

“Maybe she died around then and now her ghost is just friends with Vlad,” Sam suggested.

“Maybe,” Danny said, tapping his lips absently with his fingers. “I just have a weird feeling it’s something else entirely…”

“Only one way to find out,” Tucker said. “And unfortunately, that one way involves talking to Masters himself and maybe doing a little spying to see what he’s up to.”

“After school then?” Danny offered.

His two best friends agreed, and Danny went to work coming up with a plan to deal with Vlad as the teacher began lecturing about 15th century poetry.

 

***

 

_Kit rested her chin on her left fist as she wrote notes down on the clipboard per her uncle’s instructions._

_“The gravitational force then pulls everything together. Ectoplasm stabilizes the surface and the ecto-energy creates enough energy to form a portal to the dimension of the afterlife, commonly known as the Ghost Zone,” Tanner spoke as Kit quickly and carefully transcribed his explanation. “Within this Ghost Zone reside ectoplasmic beings, ghosts. Dr. and Dr. Fenton have studied these beings in careful detail. The genetic makeup of these beings is almost completely composed of the substance of ectoplasm. Ectoplasm, the element unique to the Ghost Zone, is made of-”_

_A sudden beeping interrupted both Tanner’s speaking and Kit’s writing. The teenager looked up to see her uncle looking at a pager he produced from a clip on his belt._

_“Looks like Duty calls,” he said with a sigh. We’ll have to finish these notes tomorrow afternoon when you get home from school._

_“Okay, that sounds fine,” Kit said, continuing her writing. “I’m going to finish these notes and clean up that last experiment before I head back up.”_

_“Sounds good, Kitkat,” Tanner said, moving to ruffle her hair before packing a few folders in a briefcase and slipping on a white overcoat. “Be sure to lock the portal once you’ve disposed of the remainder of the ectoplasmic remains.”_

_Kit shuddered when he called them “remains”. It freaked her out that this stuff made up actual ghosts. It felt wrong to mess with stuff that was considered remains of other beings. But her uncle had all but drilled into her head that ghosts were not “real” beings. They were spirits, remainders of souls and human consciences after death. The ectoplasm was just what held a spirit together. Once that was removed or destroyed, the consciousness would evaporate, perhaps into nothingness, perhaps into another plane of existence… It was impossible to know._

_But ghosts couldn’t be killed- they were already dead. That made it okay. Or at least, so she was told._

_Tanner walked up the stairs, out of the basement lab and into the ground level living room. She heard the door click closed, and she finished writing the end of the sentence before the pager interrupted Tanner. She scrawled the last letters onto the paper and flipped her notebook closed, setting it perfectly in the corner of the desk. She got up and moved to a closet, pulling out her old space camp jumpsuit that she’d modified into a costume for halloween one year. The cheesy cartoon spaceship and biceps of the union suit had been removed with ease, and Kit had placed a simple symbol of her own design on the chest. The orange was still pretty gaudy, especially with the white shoulder and elbow bands, white belt, and black boots. Thankfully, Kit was only ever seen in the thing in the lab where she wore it for sanitation purposes. Her uncle had an old mechanic's jump suit that he favoured instead of the spandex suit the Fentons had offered him after the beginning of the construction of the ghost portal within Tanner’s lab had begun. Upon reflection, Kit probably could have just found a way to get a similar jumpsuit to wear instead of her nerdy old space union suit, but she didn’t really care that much._

_She pulled the gloves on once she was zipped into the suit and got to work, placing petri dishes carefully in the sink to soak along with several other strange tools that Tanner had bought off the Fentons. She wiped down the tables they had been working on, carefully scooping any leftover ectoplasm into a small bin. She emptied the bin into a funnel that sucked the ectoplasm into a cylindrical container. She made sure there was nothing else to clean up before she carried the container to a counter by the ghost portal. She hit a button and a latch opened on a tube that hung just above the counter. She attached the container to the tube, twisting it so that it was sealed tight, and pressed another button. She watched the ectoplasmic goo go up through the tube and race along the wall, depositing directly into the ghost portal itself. Once the main console dinged, she removed the container, set it aside in the sink to soak, and washed the ectoplasm off her gloves._

_She walked over to the ghost portal and began punching in the lock code to its number pad when she heard it-_

_A noise that was just so high pitched that she could barely hear it with her limited human hearing rang through the basement… She froze and listened. The sound wasn’t coming from upstairs, the lab was sound-proof. That meant…_

_The ghost portal glowed for the most brief second before three spectral forms burst out of the open portal._

***

Vlad was not a mayor. He had no reason to be, nothing had ever motivated him to pursue that direction of politics.

Vlad Masters was a simple, very rich man, who inherited the throne, castle, and fortune from the previous Dairy King of Wisconson. However, for the last few weeks, he had taken to a vacation in Amity Park, Minnesota. A curious little town, Vlad was there for more than just the quaint city life Amity Park provided.

Vlad walked through his mansion, walking elegantly with proper poise and confidence. He descended down two grand staircases and into a tastefully decorated den. Admiring his secondary home belongings, Vlad walked to the mantle of the fireplace in the center of the room and pulled forward a small bust of himself. The fireplace sank into the floor, revealing a spiral staircase to a hidden bottom level of the mansion. As he walked, he eventually ended up in an impressively sized research lab. He admired his handiwork with the place, and as he walked into the main room, he saw a girl lounging at his desk.

She had pale skin and dark brown hair with a twinge of blue undertones. She wore a simple, red flare dress with white stitches and white trim. Her legs were crossed at the knees, her black ankle boots resting on the side of the trash bin next to the desk. She was reading a book silently, and pushed glasses up her nose to stay on her face easier. 

As Vlad entered, his shoes announced him before he could do so himself, the light clicking of the heels on his shoes reached her ears long before they should have. 

She looked up from her book and gave him a knowing smile. “Why hello. How are you today?”

“I’ll be doing much better once we get this plan into action,” Vlad said, going over to the desk she sat at and picking up a to-do list he’d left there the night before. “You’re getting better at this,” he remarked on the side.

The girl stood, and the illusion faded immediately. Her short brown hair turned completely indigo with midnight blue undertones. Her skin turned a ghostly blue, white energy illuminating her figure gently. Her red flare dress became a white and blue bodysuit with a black belt, black undershirt, and a white and red two-toned cape cascaded down from her shoulders. She walked a few feet away from the desk, her black boots clicking with each step. “Perhaps, but I still cannot hold it for very long, despite my best efforts.”

“I know, my dear, but hopefully we will fix this soon.” Vlad Masters summoned the cold that resided within his core. A ring of pure white energy appeared around his midsection, splitting in half and moving up towards his head and feet respectively. Vlad Plasmius flipped to another page in the notebook. “If we can capture that ghost girl for good, we can get her DNA to stabilize the rest of your molecular structure.”

“Sounds boring,” Rae complained. She crossed her legs, floating in midair. “Chasing the girl is fun, but she won’t be any fun locked up here. 

“Life is not all about fun, my dear,” Vlad told her sternly. “We have plans and aspirations.”

“I understand that, but I like to have as much fun as possible.” She crossed her arms and blew her bangs out of her eyes. “And if you won't entertain me, I have to find my games elsewhere.”

“So long as you do as you're told, I do not care what fun you create.” Vlad flew over to a terminal and began typing away. “So long as we have the ghost child here alive, you can do what you wish.”

Rae laid on her stomach in midair and rested her chin on her fists. She drifted over to watch Vlad over his shoulder. “Remind me why you can't stabilize me with your transformation?”

“Because it was my blood and ectoplasm that helped to create you in the first place,” Vlad said patiently. He had explained this to her several times, but he did not get weary of reminding the girl that without him, she would not exist. “If I contributed much more, you might become an exact clone of me. You share the perfect amount of traits with me as is.” Vlad clicked on a series of videos that he had captured using several recording devices he placed on Rae’s armour. They showed the ghost child, Phantom, phasing and using her ghost powers, very clumsily, he might add. There were also a few of Phantom changing back to her human half. “I was infected with the supercharged ectoplasmic matter, therefore my transformation, my mix of human and ghost DNA, is not perfect. The girl, however, is different. I'd like to know how she got those powers. I'm sure her transformation is the key to your stability.”

Rae clicked her tongue. “I can get a backstory out of her. Oh, I have the best idea for how to capture her, too!”

“What are you waiting for then, my dear? Go get her.” Vlad turned and smiled smugly at the other ghost who stood up straight and wiggled her fingers at Vlad. 

“I'll be back, father.”

 

***

 

Danny walked into his house. He quickly unzipped his hazmat suit and slipped his arms out of the sleeves. He let it hang at his waist like that, and he made his way into the kitchen, dropping the ecto gun his parents equipped him with on the counter. 

“I just don't see how her trail ran cold so fast,” Maddie was saying as she and Jazz entered through the front door.

“The tracking device was even more buggy today than yesterday,” Jazz said thoughtfully. 

Danny pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge and began to drink it as his mother and sister came in and sat down at the table. 

“I'm going to have to put new security calibration on the BOOoomerang. I have a few ideas to make it less susceptible to frying up like it has been,” Maddie said, examining the ridiculously named device she'd carried in with her. 

“It looks like it was fried with some kind of ectoplasm this time.” Jazz reached into her designated ghost hunting bag which she annoyingly insisted on carrying every time they left the house. She pulled out a notebook and began taking notes on how to improve their devices.

Danny screwed the lid onto his bottle as he swallowed a gulp of water. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He'd had to secretly fry at least four pieces of equipment while his family hadn't been looking. Because the BOOoomerang was still honed into Kit’s ectoplasmic signature, repairing it had been easy the first time. But Danny tried to fry as many wires and circuits as possible while still making it look like a messy accident. He'd placed the tracker back in his mom’s bag of devices and waited for her to discover the bad news. 

“I'll take this downstairs and take the samples of the ectoplasmic energy remains from the burns,” Jazz said, taking the BOOmerang when her mother set it down and standing up. She set it gingerly atop her notebook and tucked her pen behind her ear. “They should match up with Ghost 003, unless this was the work of another ghost.”

Danny’s heart skipped a beat, and then he realized that once she discovered that the ecto-energy wasn't from Kit, they'd have no way to trace it to him. Then he realized another oddity. “Ghost 003?” he asked. “You number them?”

Jazz gave him a weird look. “How else are a supposed to keep track of them?”

“They have names, Danny said, leaning back against the counter. “Most of them shout it out any chance they get.”

“It's much more practical to use numbers than names, Danny, “ Jazz said dismissively. 

“But it dehumanizes them,” Danny argued. “How would you like it if every ghost referred to you as “human” with a number?”

Jazz stared at him and pursed her lips. Her gaze was hard- Danny had never seen his sister look so… cold before…

She took a step towards him. “I don't care what any ghost calls me, Danny, because it's just a ghost. That's all. It's an evil, ectoplasmic being that deserves to be destroyed. It's a ghost. There's nothing human about it, therefore, dehumanizing it isn't possible.”

“You're sister is right,” Maddie said, not paying much attention to the siblings. She had already began tinkering with something else. 

Danny rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I'll be in my room,” he muttered. He was about to turn away, when he caught Jazz giving him a very unsettling look. He felt as though she was trying to dissect him with her eyes- like literally dissect him and not any of the mind-numbing psychology stuff she usually hammered him with. His heart started beating faster, anxiety tingling up his spine, and he shot a quick glare back at her before going upstairs. 

He walked into his room, shutting and locking the door behind him, and finished peeling off the rest of the hazmat suit. He stood in his undershirt and boxers for a minute before pulling the sweaty shirt off and putting fresh clothes on. His hazmat suit sat in a heap on the floor, and Danny ignored it. It reeked a bit of ectoplasm; they'd fought some no-name ghost, and Danny had managed to get the brunt of the ectoplasmic attacks. He’d purposely tried to keep the attacks directed at him since he had must faster healing abilities than his family. Even if they were a bizarre version of his family, he still didn’t want them to get hurt. He saw the burns on his arms already beginning to heal. 

Thank you, ghost powers, he thought to himself. 

He absently began to wonder if Kit healed the way he did. She'd looked pretty beat up the night they met, but she was wearing a jacket the next day, covering any visible damage to her arms. Maybe he would ask her when he saw her tonight. 

That's right, he was going to see her tonight. He wondered if he should bring Sam and Tucker along, but he knew it wouldn't be a great idea. He and Kit could move faster alone since they were both half ghost. They didn't have a spectre speeder to drive into the ghost zone with, so Sam and Tuck would be completely exposed… No, it would be better if they went alone. He would tell them tomorrow about whatever he and Kit discovered tonight. 

His phone began buzzing on his bedside table, and he looked over to find none other than Sam calling him. He picked up the phone.

“Hey, what's up?” he said casually.

“Nothing really. How'd the ghost hunting go?” she asked, a hint of amusement in her tone.

“Awful. It feels wrong, like I'm not supposed to be here and I'm just standing in like a fake,” he said, keeping his voice low in case Jazz felt like eavesdropping. His eyes traced the glow in the dark stars that stuck to his ceiling.

“Well, I've found out something that might make you feel better,” Sam offered.

“What?”

 

“Tuck did some research on Vlad earlier. He's attending a fundraiser at the Museum of Science and Engineering tonight. Sounds like an easy place to accidentally happen upon someone and create some small talk,” she said, a clever edge to her voice.

Danny sat up, propping himself up on his elbows. “That sounds like a good idea,” he said. “What time is it?”

“Six.”

Perfect. That would give him time to investigate Vlad before going to the ghost zone later. “Sounds good. You and Tucker are gonna meet me there, then?”

“Yes. Tucker is gonna keep an eye on surveillance while you and I go in,” she elaborated.

“Expecting there’ll be trouble?” He sat up completely and stretched his legs across his bed.

“Well, it’s Vlad,” Sam pointed out. “Better safe than sorry. Especially since we don’t know if this Vlad is different or not.”

“Good point. Alright, I’ll meet you there, then,” he said.

She bid him goodbye and Danny tossed his phone to the other end of his bed. He looked at his alarm clock which read “4:30PM”. He had time to finish Lancer’s homework before the fundraiser.

“And the suffering continues,” he grumbled, going to retrieve his backpack from his desk.


	8. Ghost Senses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's a fundraiser and who knows how many ghosts

The Museum of Science and Engineering stood grand and tall upon its street corner. It was impressively more upkept and decorated than the rest of the buildings around it. Tonight, many people milled on its street corner as well as inside, discussing the fundraiser to donate some sum of money to Axion Labs to forward their ghost protection department, which its recently acquired owner, Vlad Masters, began upon his purchase of the company. With the Fentons at the top of their game, it was tough to convince most patrons to donate to, what was seen by many as, an unnecessary department of Axion Labs. But Vlad Masters had a way with people.

***

Danny flew behind a trash can and crouched down, making sure no one was around to see him, and turned visible again. He found the warmth in his core and willed his human DNA to take control of his form. White rings of energy swept across his body until he sat behind the trash can as Danny Fenton. He stood up and walked across the street, visually combing through the patrons littered outside the museum to find Sam. He spotted her standing by the street lamp, sulking in the shadow and looking mostly bored. He walked over to her, waving to get her attention.

“There you are,” Sam said. “I've already seen Vlad walking around. Nothing suspicious yet, though.”

“Good. I'm hoping we can figure out if he's up to anything without actually having to talk to the guy,” Danny said with a sigh. “Where's Tuck?”

“On the roof. He got here early and hacked into the security systems. He's gonna be keeping an eye on things while we're on the floor.” Sam shouldered her monster backpack and led Danny to the door. “Vlad is supposed to make a speech soon.”

“Maybe we can snoop around while he's distracted. Let's go look around.” Danny stepped into the main hall of the museum. 

There were at least a hundred people walking around. They all seemed to be in business casual attire, so thankfully, he and Sam didn't stick out too badly in their regular clothes. Danny didn't see Vlad right away, but he saw many different ghost fighting units, including a few of the fools Vlad had hired to track him down a year ago. Those two extreme idiots were rolling towards the refreshments table on their in-line skates. He even saw a handful of Guys In White standing around looking stoic. 

“Where do we begin?” Danny whispered to Sam. 

“Thank you all for coming tonight!” 

The pair turned around to find Vlad standing on a small platform across the room. He had his hands outstretched before him. 

“I guess let's listen and figure out from there,” Sam said with a shrug. It was as good of an idea as any.

“I appreciate each and every one of you coming here tonight to support the new Dalv Program at Axion Labs! I can only hope that, with all of your help and support, we can create the most advanced ghost fighting technology together and keep this _beloved_ town ghost-free,” Vlad said, his voice strong and influential. 

The room was filled with polite applause. “Now, I have a brief explanation of the specific projects that your funding will go to, and then I'll be on the floor to mingle and discuss any plans or concerns. I also have a group of staff with me tonight to help me be in several places at once.” Vlad chuckled at himself. “Including Mr. Damon Gray, head of security at the labs. He and Dr. Brooklynn Deneveer, head of research and analysis, will be able to answer any questions you have. Now, I'll begin with the first department…”

Danny looked around. Most hallways had been roped off He saw one doorway with an “employees only” sign above it on the other side of the room from where he and Sam stood. “Let's go snoop while Cheesehead is busy,” he said softly to her, leaning in close to her. She nodded, and he took her hand, very carefully leading her through the crowd and to the open hallway behind them where the bathrooms were.

Danny froze misstep, a sharp chill ran up his spine, cause him to gasp and see a frosty breath slip out of his lips.

Sam stared at him. “Was that-”

“Where-?” Danny turned around, his eyes scanning the crowd. “Maybe Vlad..?” he muttered. His eyes went over the small crowd of Guys In White and landed upon a tall, lean man in a fitted white blazer. His clean cut blond hair was combed back, making him look fresh and professional. Tanner Vantas kept his eyes trained on Vlad as he pushed his glasses up his nose. To his side stood a girl with long, unbrushed semi-curly long hair. She twirled a lock of dark blonde hair absently around her finger. Her white cardigan would've made her blend in with the crowd she stood with if not for her bright blue t-shirt and grass-green jeans. Her orange shoes clashed spectacularly with the rest of her clothes and made her stand out like a brightly coloured sore thumb.

“Kit’s over there,” Danny said with a smirk. Her clothes looked obviously like a protest to the company she stood with. “Must’ve been her.”

“I admire her way of rebelling, although I would've gone with less bright colours,” Sam mused. 

Danny chuckled and led Sam back into the empty hall. He looked around just to make sure there really was no one around and willed his ghost DNA to wash over him, transforming beneath the rings of light. He went intangible once the rings disappeared and took Sam’s hand. He spread intangibility to her, waiting until he only knew she was there by her grip on his hand to fly back into the main room. floating above all the patrons.

***

Kit didn't know if she could be more bored. Her uncle had dragged her along, politely requesting she wear, at least, the white cardigan he'd bought her. She'd dressed in her brightest coloured attire she could find in response, then respectfully putting the cardigan on top. She hated the thing for more reasons than just its representation that she stood with the GIW. It didn't have a hood or pockets, and it fit her too well. She kept her arms crossed, trying to look neutral through her annoying discomfort. 

“Now, I'll begin with the first department,” Vlad Masters was saying upon his small stage. “Our research unit will be using thirty percent of the proceeds tonight to begin a new series of experiments. They have an entire plan for testing the effects of many different combinations of ectoplasmic elements and naturally found elements to this realm on ecto-beings. Our hope is to find a combination that is quick and easy to produce yet very powerful for defense against these beings.”

Kit resisted the urge to yawn. She was interested to an extent, but she had homework to do, and she still had to prepare to meet Danny later. Uncle Tanner had said the fundraiser wouldn't last more than two hours tops, but it was still two hours she could've been using for more productive means. 

Suddenly, an icy chill raced up her spine and made her gasp. She went rigid as she saw a small, frosty breath escape her lips. She clamped her mouth shut and squeezed her arms tighter around herself, not daring to move an inch. Her uncle didn't seem to notice, nor did any of his colleagues or any of the other dangerous company in the room. Without moving her head much, she tried to look throughout the crowd to find whatever had set off her ghost sense. Everyone looked normal, and no one seemed a be stirring aside from the occasional murmur response to Vlad Masters’s words. 

Very carefully, Kit found the cold core within her and pulled more of her heightened ghost senses up to usable levels. She had to be careful not to do too much, or else her eyes would change or something worse would happen. She looked around the room again, slowly this time, trying to see if she could sense any specific ghosts around.

Something caught her attention above the crowd. She couldn't see anything, but she felt her ghost instincts pulling towards something in the air. She saw, just for a second, a flicker of ghostly energy. Something was up there.

She couldn't alert anyone to it yet. She absently reached down to feel the mini ectogun in her pocket. She tightened her arms around herself again and clenched her teeth, forcing her ghost instincts back down beneath her human consciousness. She forced herself to keep control and focused her eyes back on Vlad Masters. She would wait, for now.

***

“We need to look around in the back,” Sam whispered. 

Danny flew them through the wall where the “employees only” sign hung above a door, and he made sure the coast was clear before setting them down and making them tangible again. They were in a small hallway. It was empty and silent aside from Vlad’s voice echoing through the doorway. Danny and Sam started down the hall, and he poked an invisible head through each door . they walked by.

“Nothing suspicious or even remotely exciting in any of these,” he reported with frustration.

“Maybe the second floor?” Sam suggested.

“Worth a shot.” Danny took her hand and flew them up to the next floor. He heard the crowd erupt with applause, and voices got louder as people began mingling again.

They flew through each room, each just as ordinary as the next. Finally, Danny sat them down at the end of the hall. “I guess he doesn't have anything to hide back here,” Danny said with a sigh. He pulled his human DNA up, and felt a smooth rush of warmth cover his body as he transformed back to a human. “Maybe there'll be something to find back in the main room.”

“That's good, optimism is good,” Sam said, shivering and shaking her hands out. “Man, I don't know how you stay intangible for so long without getting constant chills.”

“Guess it's the whole ‘ghost core’ thing,” he said with a grin. He took her hand and walked back down to the main level with her.

***

Kit tried to stay off in the corner. Her uncle trusted her not to leave, and both Kit and the other GIW wanted her away from their group, so she was much happier observing the scene in a corner. She was currently watching Uncle Tanner talking to two people dressed like they were supposed to be at the X Games. They wore in-line skates and everything. Kit wished she had in-line skates. That would at least make this place more interesting.

Kit felt that sharp cold race up her spine again, and she backed closer to the corner as she saw her breath escape her mouth. “Oh, really?” she muttered, groaning and crossing her arms again. She looked around, trying to find anyone out of place again. Still, everyone looked normal…

“Miss Vantas, is it?”

Kit jumped, turning her head to look at the person who had just scared her off her train of thought. Her eyes landed on a man about half a foot taller than herself, dressed in a very nice casual black suit. His grey hair was more silver, and it was pulled back into a classy low ponytail. His dark eyes looked at her with a twinge of amusement. “Oh, my apologies, I didn't mean to startle you,” Vlad Masters said, lifting a hand to his chest.

“Oh, no, no, it's alright,” Kit said, smiling politely and waving her hand dismissively. “I guess I'm just a little on edge. The company I came with aren't the most, uh, relaxed group.” She laughed lightly and held her hands in front of her. She was desperately trying to grasp onto the charm she kept up front when at one of her uncle’s business gatherings. Currently, it was like trying to hold a wet bar of soap.

“Completely understandable. I'm sure they're not very popular with teenagers. Though I'm sure you're used to them with your uncle’s occupation and such,” Vlad said with a smile.

“Yeah, I guess,” Kit said. “Thankfully they don't stick around our house very much, and I don't have to really socialize with them.” She mentally cursed herself- she was just babbling now to Vlad Masters. She began trying to think of a way out of the conversation.

“How do you like your uncle’s work?” Vlad asked. “He’s discovered many useful properties of the ghost portal and ectoplasm in the last few years.”

This question caught her off guard a little. She wasn’t used to people at these events seeming actually interested in her or what she thought of the work her uncle did. Usually, people would politely compliment Tanner’s work and tell her it must be hard juggling high school and GIW assistant activities along with a fake laugh. She would return the laugh and agree with them, not bothering to point out that she wasn’t an assistant to the GIW. But Vlad looked at her like he was interested in _her_.

“It’s interesting, definitely,” she said. “I learn a lot from him, and I like to learn, so it’s pretty nice.”

“He talks fondly of having you with him while he works. It’s clear he values your input to his studies,” Vlad said. “Do you often do your own work alongside him?”

“Me?” Kit actually raised a hand and pointed to herself. “Ah- no, not really. I’m not that, uh, interested in fighting ghosts or a lot of the experiment heavy stuff my uncle does.” She laughed nervously and fidgeted her hands in front of her. “I don’t mind helping him and stuff, but I’m not really interested in doing my own thing, you know?”

“Ah, of course, I completely understand,” Vlad said, flashing her a charming smile. “I, too, do not care much for ghost hunting. It is important to this town, though, with all the spectral activity, which is the whole point of this fundraiser.”

“It seems to be going along rather well,” Kit told him, looking around the room. Everything still seemed fine. “I’m sure people will be willing to donate to a good cause.” She flashed him a charming smile of her own. She could force out her charisma when she wanted to. Usually.

“I do hope so.” 

Kit shivered again, and a cold mist escaped her lips as her ghost sense went off again. As soon as she saw her breath, Vlad gave her a peculiar look, and she turned her head and coughed a few times, placing an arm over her mouth and one hand dramatically on her chest. 

“Oh, dear- are you alright?” Vlad asked, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Kit cleared her throat, recovering from the fake coughing fit and gave him a weak smile. “Yes- Sorry, I think I just inhaled wrong or something, haha! S-Sorry about that,” She fanned herself for a moment for dramatic effect.

“There you are,” a new voice said. Kit saw a girl several inches taller than her (most likely because of her high wedges) walk up to them. She was still shorter than Vlad, but she walked up and put her arm around his. Her short brown hair very lightly bounced as she walked, and her short red dress flowed with her movement. Kit had never seen her before.

_Could she be… like.. A girlfriend..? Maybe..? But she looks young…_

“Oh, yes- Miss Vantas, this is my daughter, Rachael,” Vlad said, extending his hand between them in introduction.

Rachael looked at Kit with her dark brown eyes. Her skin was ridiculously pale- Kit wondered if she had to put on sunscreen even on a cloudy day. Her thin figure seemed perfectly proportioned everywhere. Kit didn’t realize she was really staring until Rachael extended a hand towards her. “Hi, it’s so nice to meet you,” she said warmly. She smiled, showing off perfectly white teeth.

Kit took her hand. Her long, pale fingers wrapped around Kit’s hand elegantly. Her handshake was delicate yet firm. Who was this girl? 

“Nice to meet you too,” Kit said, offering a polite smile. Rachael held her hand a few seconds longer than necessary, and when she finally withdrew her hands, she held them in front of her.

“Father, they’re waiting for you in the back,” Rachael said to Vlad, turning to face him. 

“Yes, of course,” Vlad said. He turned to face Kit again. “It was nice talking to you, Miss Vantas. Oh, and if you ever become more interested in ‘doing your own thing’, as you put it, here in the ecto-research field-” Vlad paused mid-sentence to produce a small business card from his jacket pocket. He extended it out towards her. “Give me a call. We have specialized research fields, and, who knows, perhaps one might catch your attention.” 

Kit took the card and looked it over. It was Vlad Masters’s personal business card, with his office phone and e-mail and everything. She looked back up to him, surprised at the office. “Thank you, Mr. Masters,” was all she could manage.

“My pleasure,” Vlad said with a charismatic smile. “Enjoy the rest of the event.” He turned with his daughter and headed back into the crowd.

Kit looked at the business card again and put it in her jeans pocket. She moved backwards, staying closer to the corner and keeping a closer look on everyone in the crowds. She still didn’t know what- or who- set off her ghost sense…

***

Danny sighed as they merged back within the crowd. “Absolutely nothing,” he muttered.

“Maybe this wasn’t totally a bust,” Same said. Danny looked at her and saw her typing on her phone. She hit send on a message and gave him a smile. “Tucker says he has something.”

They carefully made their way outside and ran around to the back of the building where Tucker was stood waiting for them. He pulled out his PDA and began tapping through a few menus.

“So, I kept a stream of the security cameras while you guys were in there, and I found a few interesting things.” He showed them the PDA screen and played the video he pulled up. It was an office room, similar to the ones Danny and Sam had flown through on the first floor. Inside, a girl with short brown hair and a red dress sat upon a desk. She was flipping through a book, kicking her heels gently against the desk side. Vlad entered from the door across from the desk. She looked up and grinned. 

“Is she here?” Vlad asked her.

“Yes, but she’s with those rotten GIW men,” the girl said. “I won’t have a chance tonight without raising suspicion.”

“Pity,” Vlad said with a sigh. “We’ll have to postpone our plans, then. However, I have many other potential opportunities opening up tonight, so not all is lost.”

“What would you like me to do while you’re mingling with businessmen?” she asked, crossing her arms. “I don’t know how much more of these drab four walls I can take.”

“By all means,” Vlad said, giving her a greasy grin. “Explore, mingle, spy on the GIW, it matters little to me what you do for now.”

“Perfect,” the girl said, smiling and hopping off the desk. she smoothed out her skirt. “I love freedom. Shall I introduce myself to them as your daughter?”

“Of course. That's what you are, aren't you, Rachael?” Vlad smirked knowingly at Rachael.

She walked up to Vlad. “Of course, father. I, Rachael Masters, will not let you down.”

Rachael existed the room then, leaving Vlad behind. 

Tucker pulled back his PDA. “Vlad has a _daughter?_ ? Since when?”

“Since this universe, I guess,” Sam said, wrinkling her nose. “He’s not married, is he?”

“I doubt Vlad would want to marry anyone other than my mom,” Danny said with a disgusted sigh. “I guess that may not mean anything though? Ugh.”

“My question is, who’s the person they were talking about? The one with the GIW?”

Danny checked his watch. He was running late. He’d have to check in at home again before he met up with Kit. “I think I know who,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Kit?” Sam guessed. 

Danny nodded. “And if Vlad and his daughter are looking for Kit, I think there’s a lot more to this that we aren’t seeing yet. Speaking of Kit though, she told me about a new idea she has to get us back home. I’ve gotta run so I can have time to meet her tonight. I’ll see you guys in the morning.”

He bid his friends farewell, and ran down the block, waiting until he was a comfortable distance away from the hub of ghost fighters before changing to his ghost half and flying home.

***

Kit raced up the last flight of stairs and quickly changed into some normal clothes. She moved to the desk where she kept all her notes and research from her ghost work, and pulled a small box out of one of the desk drawers. She grabbed her notes and quickly made her way back downstairs.

“Where are you running off to, kiddo?” Tanner called from the kitchen. 

Kit stepped back into view from the doorway and held up her notebook. “Working on some experiments. Got some new ideas the other day and I’m gonna go try them out,” she said, trying to catch her breath every few words. “You don’t need to go down there any more tonight, do you? I gotta use a lot of space and I need to really focus.”

Tanner chuckled and waved her off. “Nah, have at it. I’ll be off to bed soon. Just don’t forget to lock up the portal and the weapons cabinet when you’re done.”

“Of course!” Kit called over her shoulder as she rushed down towards the basement.

Once downstairs, she quickly laid out her notes on a clean table and removed the objects from the box she was carrying. Inside was a mini-portal gun, several adapters, and two larger parts that sparkled with ecto-energy as they radiated a low hum of energy. She examined her notes carefully, making adjustments to some of the pieces and notes, and she began clipping the device together. She hoped Danny would be a little late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOY sorry about the ten year gap between chapters everyone. there's been lots of stuff going on. next chapter will be more eventful, i promise. hopefully somethings are kind of coming together a bit now!!
> 
> i would love to say that i'm gonna try to start updating on a biweekly basis, but i don't want to be a liar so i'll just say for now that i have every intention on finishing this and i think about it every day!!!!
> 
> feel free to bother me on tumblr, perseajackson, or twitter @algebrabook if you want to chat or bug me for more updates!!
> 
> enjoy!! xoxo, 
> 
> -kp


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